The Group of Seven top bridging finance ministers and central bankers issued a statement after its meeting in Rome saying that the global downturn was still of great concern, but that the countries were committed to doing what was necessary to revive the world economy.
In a statement after the meeting, the participants said they would “commit to take any further action that may prove necessary to reestablish full confidence in the global financial system.”
"We will continue to work together and to cooperate to avoid undesirable spillovers and distortions,” the ministers said, noting that the downturn is expected to persist through 2009. They said they believe the country economic-policy responses “will build over time.”
The statement also said the ministers "welcome China's fiscal measures and continued commitment to move to more flexible exchange rate," language the U.S. had specifically sought.
The ministers said their deputies will follow up with another report in four months.
“As we act together to build a strong foundation for recovery, we need to begin the process of comprehensive reform of our financial system and the international financial system, so the world never again faces a crisis this severe,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said in his own post-meeting statement.
“We will work closely with our colleagues in the G-7 and the G-20 to build consensus on reforms that match the scope of the problems revealed by this crisis,” he continued.
At the close of the meeting, a senior Treasury official said the U.S. delegation tried to let the other G-7 officials know “how we see, where we are in the process, what's working, where we're getting some traction" in U.S. policy responses to the financial crisis.
The official said the team tried to present a balanced message to the other countries to do more themselves -- "the policy has been a bit behind" the crisis -- but without publicly stating what the U.S. is doing and confronting them next with "what are you guys doing?"
"This is hard," the official said. "It is any awkward thing to do. You have to find a balance."
He said that countries are now moving forward and being more responsive than before.
The basic recognition of the problems “is completely different now," he said.
He said this meeting was designed to lay the groundwork for President Obama at the April G-20 meeting, "so as much concreteness" in new policy responses, individually and together, can be adopted and announced at that meeting.
"Everything should build to that moment," he said.
The G-7 countries are the U.S., Canada, U.K., France, Germany, Italy and Japan. The G-20 is a bigger group that includes developing nations such as China and Brazil.
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