G20 Finance Ministers Meeting

The Group of Twenty (G20) unites state and finance leaders of the twenty largest economies in the world to discuss ways for further international economic cooperation.

The Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meet each other at a crucial period in time, with continuing uncertainty over global economic recovery perspectives in the coming year.

Two main points are likely to dominate the discussions between the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors.

During the summit the G20 will discuss the need to provide multilateral incentives to reassure the fiscal and monetary stability of the financial system to protect citizens from future financial meltdowns. 

A measure to overcome the debt crisis has been suggested earlier by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in an attempt to implement stricter fiscal policies in the Eurozone. The spillover of the Eurozone debt crisis towards other regions may cause banks to lower their loan expenditures towards businesses. In turn, this may result in the continuation of the lack of trust investors have towards the markets and cause them to withhold new capital investments.

 

A second point on the agenda will most likely concern IMF voting and governance reforms. The shift of economic weight towards emerging countries like Brazil, China and India is not yet reflected in the voting procedures under current IMF rules. 

Since the founding of the IMF in 1944, the U.S. and the EU have arranged to have enough votes to veto any reform and policy initiative that is not in their direct interest.

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