08 July 2017

G20 leaders´ declaration: Shaping an interconnected world

Prospering Global Economy: Current growth prospects are encouraging, though the pace of growth is still weaker than desirable. We reaffirm our commitment to international economic and financial cooperation to further strengthen growth and safeguard against downside risks. We will continue to use all policy tools – monetary, fiscal and structural – individually and collectively to achieve our goal of strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth, while enhancing economic and financial resilience. Monetary policy will continue to support economic activity and ensure price stability, consistent with central banks’ mandates. Fiscal policy will be used flexibly and be growth-friendly while ensuring debt as a share of GDP is on a sustainable path. We reinforce our commitment to structural reforms. We reaffirm our previous exchange rate commitments. We will strive to reduce excessive global imbalances in a way that supports global growth. We will promote greater inclusiveness, fairness and equality in our pursuit of economic growth and job creation. To these ends, we endorse the Hamburg Action Plan.

Trade and Investment: International trade and investment are important engines of growth, productivity, innovation, job creation and development. We will keep markets open noting the importance of reciprocal and mutually advantageous trade and investment frameworks and the principle of non-discrimination, and continue to fight protectionism including all unfair trade practices and recognise the role of legitimate trade defence instruments in this regard. We will strive to ensure a level playing field, in particular by promoting a favourable environment for trade and investment in this regard. We further reaffirm the importance of transparency for predictable and mutually beneficial trade relations. To this end, we value the monitoring activities by the WTO, UNCTAD and OECD within their existing mandates. We commit to further strengthen G20 trade and investment cooperation. We call on the OECD, WTO, World Bank Group and IMF to continue their work to better understand trade impacts and report back to G20 Leaders in 2018.

We recognise that the benefits of international trade and investment have not been shared widely enough. We need to better enable our people to seize the opportunities and benefits of economic globalisation. We agree to exchange experiences on the mitigation of the adjustment costs of trade and investment liberalisation and technological change, and on appropriate domestic policies, as well as to enhance international cooperation towards inclusive and sustainable global growth. 

We underline the crucial role of the rules-based international trading system. We note the importance of bilateral, regional and plurilateral agreements being open, transparent, inclusive and WTO-consistent, and commit to working to ensure they complement the multilateral trade agreements. We welcome the entry into force of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement and call for its full implementation including technical assistance to developing countries. We commit to work together with all WTO members to make the eleventh WTO Ministerial Conference a success. To further improve the functioning of the WTO, we will cooperate to ensure the effective and timely enforcement of trade rules and commitments as well as improve its negotiating, monitoring and dispute settlement functions.

International investment can play an important role in promoting inclusive economic growth, job creation and sustainable development, and requires an open, transparent and conducive global policy environment. We will seek to identify strategies to facilitate and retain foreign direct investment.

Excess Capacities: Recognising the sustained negative impacts on domestic production, trade and workers due to excess capacity in industrial sectors, we commit to further strengthening our cooperation to find collective solutions to tackle this global challenge. We urgently call for the removal of market-distorting subsidies and other types of support by governments and related entities. Each of us commits to take the necessary actions to deliver the collective solutions that foster a truly level playing field. Therefore, we call on the members of the Global Forum on Steel Excess Capacity, facilitated by the OECD, as mandated by the Hangzhou Summit, to fulfil their commitments on enhancing information sharing and cooperation by August 2017, and to rapidly develop concrete policy solutions that reduce steel excess capacity. We look forward to a substantive report with concrete policy solutions by November 2017, as a basis for tangible and swift policy action, and follow-up progress reporting in 2018. [...]

Building Resilience

Resilient Global Financial System: An open and resilient financial system, grounded in agreed international standards, is crucial to supporting sustainable growth. We remain committed to the finalisation and timely, full and consistent implementation of the agreed G20 financial sector reform agenda. We will work to finalise the Basel III framework without further significantly increasing overall capital requirements across the banking sector, while promoting a level playing field. We will continue to closely monitor and, if necessary, address emerging risks and vulnerabilities in the financial system. We emphasise the considerable progress made towards transforming shadow banking into resilient market based finance since the financial crisis and welcome the FSB assessment of the monitoring and policy tools available to address risks from shadow banking. We support the FSB’s work to analyse the effects of financial regulatory reforms and the structured framework for post-implementation evaluation. Acknowledging that malicious use of ICT could endanger financial stability, we welcome the progress of the FSB’s work and look forward to a stock-take report in October 2017.

International Financial Architecture: We need strong, effective and representative global economic and financial institutions to underpin growth and sustainable development. As laid out in the Hamburg Action Plan, we will continue to improve the system underpinning international capital flows and emphasise the need to promote sound and sustainable financing practices. We will enhance the international financial architecture and the global financial safety net with a strong, quota-based and adequately resourced IMF at its centre. We look forward to the completion of the 15th General Review of IMF Quotas, including a new quota formula, by the Spring Meetings 2019 and no later than the Annual Meetings 2019, and support ongoing work to further enhance the effectiveness of its lending toolkit. We endorse the MDBs’ Joint Principles and Ambitions on Crowding-In Private Finance (“Hamburg Principles and Ambitions”) and welcome their work on optimising balance sheets and boosting investment in infrastructure and connectivity.

International Tax Cooperation and Financial Transparency: We will continue our work for a globally fair and modern international tax system and welcome international cooperation on pro-growth tax policies. We remain committed to the implementation of the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) package and encourage all relevant jurisdictions to join the Inclusive Framework. We look forward to the first automatic exchange of financial account information under the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) in September 2017. We call on all relevant jurisdictions to begin exchanges by September 2018 at the latest. We commend the recent progress made by jurisdictions to meet a satisfactory level of implementation of the agreed international standards on tax transparency and look forward to an updated list by the OECD by our next Summit reflecting further progress made towards implementation. Defensive measures will be considered against listed jurisdictions. We continue to support assistance to developing countries in building their tax capacity. We are also working on enhancing tax certainty and with the OECD on the tax challenges raised by digitalisation of the economy. As an important tool in our fight against corruption, tax evasion, terrorist financing and money laundering, we will advance the effective implementation of the international standards on transparency and beneficial ownership of legal persons and legal arrangements, including the availability of information in the domestic and crossborder context. [...]

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