Plans for the fourth G20 Summit in June: Co-chaired by Canada and Korea in Toronto
19 January 2010
Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper announced that Toronto will host the G20 summit on June 26 and 27, 2010. “The G20 has facilitated decisive action throughout the past year to limit the impact of the global financial crisis on jobs and growth,” said Harper. “Canada continues to play a leadership role to ensure a durable recovery is assured. We are implementing one of the largest stimulus packages and are contributing to international financial reform by helping to lead the G20 and the work of the Financial Stability Board.” At the Pittsburgh Summit, the G20 leaders agreed to launch a framework that lays out the policies and ways to act together to generate strong, sustainable and balanced global growth. One of Canada’s goals at the Toronto Summit in 2010 will be to ensure the framework’s prompt and effective implementation.
“This represents an unprecedented opportunity to maintain the momentum needed to introduce much-needed financial sector reforms,” added Harper. “We have demonstrated leadership by providing new resources and guarantees to strengthen international financial institutions, namely innovative new capital arrangements to help ensure the Inter-
American Development Bank and the African Development Bank have resources they can count on throughout the crisis. We intend to continue playing a role in defining the path forward in 2010.” Harper and Korean president Lee Myung-bak are working closely together and with the international community to ensure the coming year is one of economic renewal.2 (December 7, 2009, Office of the Prime Minister)
When the G20 finance officials met in Scotland at the beginning of November, they planned to develop a peer review process to ensure their economic policies avoided the trade and budget imbalances that contributed to last year’s financial crisis, a U.S. treasury department official said.
The G20 planned to establish the types of economic data that each country needed to submit for review by the IMF. The officials also planned to set deadlines that would produce results to be reviewed by the next time the G20 leaders meet in June. The G20 leaders agreed in September in Pittsburgh to subject their economic policies to the scrutiny of a peer review process that would determine whether each country’s individual economic programs were “collectively consistent” with sustainable global growth. The goal was to avoid repeating problems like huge trade and budget deficits in the U.S., and massive trade surpluses in China and elsewhere. The flowof cheap credit from China was seen as playing a major role in fueling the U.S. housingboom and subsequent collapse.
The IMF planned to review the individual country dataand submit a report to the G20 finance ministers that would ultimately form the basis fordiscussion when the G20 leaders meet in June in Canada. It was unclear, however, justhow detailed the reports would be given the reluctance of individual nations to facecurrent state of the global economy and the need to continue providing governmentstimulus to ensure that fledgling signs of recovery become sustainable. Finance officialsalso planned to discuss the progress being made in reforming the IMF and other globalfinance organizations to give rapidly growing nations such as China a stronger voice indecisions.
At the third G20 summit in Pittsburgh, Canada and Korea announced that they would cochair a G20 summit in Canada in 2010. Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper stated that the G20 has proven its effectiveness and representativeness in dealing with the economic crisis. A date and location have not yet been announced.
