G-20 Heads to Meet Two Months at Brisbane, Modi to Join Meeting

Targets Two percent Additional GDP in Five Year

Australia Finance Minister Hockey said in the G-20 meet at Cairns that measures proposed by member economies have brought the G-20 about 90 percent of the way to achieving a target of lifting the group’s collective gross domestic product by an additional 2 percent, or more, over five years. Individual members will submit their plans toward reaching the goal at a leaders’ summit in Brisbane in 15-16 November.

Policy makers in the U.S. and Canada are putting pressure on Europe to bolster demand. U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew has urged Europe to spur demand, while Canada’s Oliver has said some European countries should consider additional fiscal measures.

The ECB will gauge the effects of monetary stimulus unveiled in June and September before deciding whether more action is needed to bring inflation back toward 2 percent.

Debt Management, Expenditure Management

G-20 economies will “continue to implement fiscal strategies flexibly to take into account near-term economic conditions,” while putting debt as a share of GDP on a sustainable path, finance chiefs said in the statement. “We agree to consider changes in the composition and quality of government expenditure and tax to enhance the contribution of our fiscal strategies to growth.”

Finance chiefs and central bankers agreed that monetary policy should continue to support the economic recovery and should particularly address deflationary pressures where they are evident, Hockey said. Achieving robust growth will facilitate the eventual normalization of monetary policy in advanced economies, according to the G-20 statement.

“It became clear that in the short-term, more work needs to be done to bolster cyclical measures,” Mexican Deputy Finance Minister Fernando Aportela said in an interview in Cairns.

“The recommendations have to be tailored and targeted for each and every country,” she said. “Each and every one is different.”