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G20 Summits > G20 Seoul Summit

The G20 Seoul Summit Leaders' Declaration

Seoul, November 12, 2010
[English PDF]

1. We, the Leaders of the G20, are united in our conviction that by working together we can secure a more prosperous future for the citizens of all countries.

2. When we first gathered in November 2008 to address the most severe world recession our generation has ever confronted, we pledged to support and stabilize the global economy, and at the same time, to lay the foundation for reform, to ensure the world would never face such upheaval again.

3. Over the past four Summits, we have worked with unprecedented cooperation to break the dramatic fall in the global economy to establish the basis for recovery and renewed growth.

4. The concrete steps we have taken will help ensure we are better prepared to prevent and, if necessary, to withstand future crises. We pledge to continue our coordinated efforts and act together to generate strong, sustainable and balanced growth.

5. We recognize the importance of addressing the concerns of the most vulnerable. To this end, we are determined to put jobs at the heart of the recovery, to provide social protection, decent work and also to ensure accelerated growth in low income countries (LICs).

6. Our relentless and cooperative efforts over the last two years have delivered strong results. However, we must stay vigilant.

7. Risks remain. Some of us are experiencing strong growth, while others face high levels of unemployment and sluggish recovery. Uneven growth and widening imbalances are fueling the temptation to diverge from global solutions into uncoordinated actions. However, uncoordinated policy actions will only lead to worse outcomes for all.

8. Since 2008, a common view of the challenges of the world economy, the necessary responses and our determination to resist protectionism has enabled us to both address the root causes of the crisis and safeguard the recovery. We are agreed today to develop our common view to meet these new challenges and a path to strong, sustainable and balanced growth beyond the crisis.

9. Today, the Seoul Summit delivers:

• the Seoul Action Plan composed of comprehensive, cooperative and country-specific policy actions to move closer to our shared objective. The Plan includes our commitment to:

- undertake macroeconomic policies, including fiscal consolidation where necessary, to ensure ongoing recovery and sustainable growth and enhance the stability of financial markets, in particular moving toward more market-determined exchange rate systems, enhancing exchange rate flexibility to reflect underlying economic fundamentals, and refraining from competitive devaluation of currencies. Advanced economies, including those with reserve currencies, will be vigilant against excess volatility and disorderly movements in exchange rates. These actions will help mitigate the risk of excessive volatility in capital flows facing some emerging countries;

- implement a range of structural reforms that boost and sustain global demand, foster job creation, and increase the potential for growth; and

- enhance the Mutual Assessment Process (MAP) to promote external sustainability. We will strengthen multilateral cooperation to promote external sustainability and pursue the full range of policies conducive to reducing excessive imbalances and maintaining current account imbalances at sustainable levels. Persistently large imbalances, assessed against indicative guidelines to be agreed by our Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors, warrant an assessment of their nature and the root causes of impediments to adjustment as part of the MAP, recognizing the need to take into account national or regional circumstances, including large commodity producers. These indicative guidelines composed of a range of indicators would serve as a mechanism to facilitate timely identification of large imbalances that require preventive and corrective actions to be taken. To support our efforts toward meeting these commitments, we call on our Framework Working Group, with technical support from the IMF and other international organizations, to develop these indicative guidelines, with progress to be discussed by our Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in the first half of 2011; and, in Gyeongju, our Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors called on the IMF to provide an assessment as part of the MAP on the progress toward external sustainability and the consistency of fiscal, monetary, financial sector, structural, exchange rate and other policies. In light of this, the first such assessment, to be based on the above mentioned indicative guidelines, will be initiated and undertaken in due course under the French Presidency.

• a modernized IMF that better reflects the changes in the world economy through greater representation of dynamic emerging markets and developing countries. These comprehensive quota and governance reforms, as outlined in the Seoul Summit Document, will enhance the IMF's legitimacy, credibility and effectiveness, making it an even stronger institution for promoting global financial stability and growth.

• instruments to strengthen global financial safety nets, which help countries cope with financial volatility by providing them with practical tools to overcome sudden reversals of international capital flows.

• core elements of a new financial regulatory framework, including bank capital and liquidity standards, as well as measures to better regulate and effectively resolve systemically important financial institutions, complemented by more effective oversight and supervision. This new framework, complemented by other achievements as outlined in the Seoul Summit Document, will ensure a more resilient financial system by reining in the past excesses of the financial sector and better serving the needs of our economies.

• the Seoul Development Consensus for Shared Growth that sets out our commitment to work in partnership with other developing countries, and LICs in particular, to help them build the capacity to achieve and maximize their growth potential, thereby contributing to global rebalancing. The Seoul Consensus complements our commitment to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and focuses on concrete measures as summarized in our Multi-Year Action Plan on Development to make a tangible and significant difference in people's lives, including in particular through the development of infrastructure in developing countries.

• the Financial Inclusion Action Plan, the Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion and a flexible SME Finance Framework, all of which will significantly contribute to improving access to financial services and expanding opportunities for poor households and small and medium enterprises.

• our strong commitment to direct our negotiators to engage in across-the-board negotiations to promptly bring the Doha Development Round to a successful, ambitious, comprehensive, and balanced conclusion consistent with the mandate of the Doha Development Round and built on the progress already achieved. We recognize that 2011 is a critical window of opportunity, albeit narrow, and that engagement among our representatives must intensify and expand. We now need to complete the end game. Once such an outcome is reached, we commit to seek ratification, where necessary, in our respective systems. We are also committed to resisting all forms of protectionist measures.

10. We will continue to monitor and assess ongoing implementation of the commitments made today and in the past in a transparent and objective way. We hold ourselves accountable. What we promise, we will deliver.

11. Building on our achievements to date, we have agreed to work further on macro-prudential policy frameworks; better reflect the perspective of emerging market economies in financial regulatory reforms; strengthen regulation and oversight of shadow banking; further work on regulation and supervision of commodity derivatives markets; improve market integrity and efficiency; enhance consumer protection; pursue all outstanding governance reform issues at the IMF and World Bank; and build a more stable and resilient international monetary system, including by further strengthening global financial safety nets. We will also expand our MAP based on the indicative guidelines to be agreed.

12. To promote resilience, job creation and mitigate risks for development, we will prioritize action under the Seoul Consensus on addressing critical bottlenecks, including infrastructure deficits, food market volatility, and exclusion from financial services.

13. To provide broader, forward-looking leadership in the post-crisis economy, we will also continue our work to prevent and tackle corruption through our Anti-Corruption Action Plan; rationalize and phase-out over the medium term inefficient fossil fuel subsidies; mitigate excessive fossil fuel price volatility; safeguard the global marine environment; and combat the challenges of global climate change.

14. We reaffirm our resolute commitment to fight climate change, as reflected in the Leaders' Seoul Summit Document. We appreciate President Felipe Calderón's briefing on the status of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations, as well as Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's briefing on the report of the High-Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing submitted to the UN Secretary-General. We will spare no effort to reach a balanced and successful outcome in Cancun.

15. We welcome the Fourth UN LDC Summit in Turkey and the Fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Korea, both to be held in 2011.

16. Recognizing the importance of private sector-led growth and job creation, we welcome the Seoul G20 Business Summit and look forward to continuing the G20 Business Summit in upcoming Summits.

17. The actions agreed today will help to further strengthen the global economy, accelerate job creation, ensure more stable financial markets, narrow the development gap and promote broadly shared growth beyond crisis.

18. We look forward to our next meeting in 2011 in France, and subsequent meeting in 2012 in Mexico.

19. We thank Korea for its G20 Presidency and for hosting the successful Seoul Summit.

20. The Seoul Summit Document, which we have agreed, follows.

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Source: Seoul Summit official website