Seoul (AsiaNews) – G20 leaders have decided not to decide on almost every issue on the table at their summit in Seoul, South Korea. They did decide to put joint action on climate change on the agenda at their meeting in Cancun, Mexico, and on currency regime reform in Nice, France.
Observers are left win the impression that participants have decided to let US President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, find a solution to the “currency war” around the yuan. The two leaders are in fact scheduled to meet in Washington next month when Hu visits the US capital.
The summit’s final communiqué left a lot hanging in the air. Despite the economic recovery underway, G20 leaders agreed that a new downturn is still possible. They “pledge[d] to continue our coordinated efforts and act together to generate strong, sustainable and balanced growth” as well as refrain “from competitive devaluation of currencies.”
According to the G20, the recovery is being undermined by “Uneven growth and widening imbalances [that] are fuelling the temptation to diverge from global solutions into uncoordinated actions.” To avoid this, participants said that would develop “indicative guidelines [. . .] to facilitate timely identification of large imbalances that require preventive and corrective actions to be taken.”
The leaders’ statement also highlighted the need to fight protectionism and move “toward more market-determined exchange rate systems”. Indeed, all the leaders agree that it is necessary to resist “all forms of protectionist measures.”
On the issue of banks, the G20 backs the Basel 3 rules to prevent the collapse of the largest financial institutions, which must hitherto respect new, tighter rules about capital, liquidity and risk in order to avoid the excesses of the past.