Thursday, April 02, 2009

The G20 Agreement At a Glance

At a glance: G20 agreement

G20 world leaders have revealed their communiqué to tackle the global economic crisis. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced the $1.1 trillion deal as he closed the G20 summit.

Here is a summary of the key points:

FINANCIAL REGULATION

A new Financial Stability Board, with a strengthened mandate, will replace the Financial Stability Forum

Financial regulation and oversight will be extended to all financial institutions, instruments and markets

This includes bringing hedge funds within the global regulatory net for the first time

Members are committed to implementing tough new rules on pay and bonuses at a global level

International accounting standards will be set
Credit rating agencies will be regulated in order to remove their conflicts of interest

A common approach to cleaning up banks' toxic assets has been agreed

TAX HAVENS

There will be sanctions against tax havens that do not transfer information on request

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has published a list of countries assessed by the Global Forum against the international standard for exchange of tax information

IMF

Resources available to the International Monetary Fund will be trebled to $750bn

This includes a new overdraft facility, or special drawing rights allocation, of $250bn

Additional resources of $6bn from agreed IMF gold sales will be made available for lending to the poorest countries
The G20 also supports increased lending to the world's poorest countries of at least $100bn by the multilateral development banks

GLOBAL TRADE

There will be a commitment of $250bn of support for trade finance made over the next two years

This will be made available through export credit and investment agencies, as well as through multilateral development banks

National regulators will be asked to make use of available flexibility in capital requirements for trade finance

PROTECTIONISM

The G20 has pledged to resist protectionism

There will be a commitment to naming and shaming countries that breach free trade rules

The G20 will notify the World Trade Organization (WTO) of any measures that constrain worldwide capital flows

The G20 has called on the WTO to monitor and report publicly on these undertakings on a quarterly basis

FISCAL STIMULUS

Although there is no new fiscal stimulus, Gordon Brown said G20 countries are already implementing "the biggest macroeconomic stimulus the world has ever seen" - an injection of $5tn by the end of next year.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/7979682.stm
Published: 2009/04/02 17:04:07 GMT

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