Finance leaders meeting for G8 talks in Marseilles on Saturday pledged $38 billion in loans and grants to Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco and Jordan over the next two years, and invited Libya to join the partnership.
France has called for a “co-ordinated response” to the global debt crisis in the run-up to Friday’s meeting of G7 countries in the French city of Marseilles late Friday afternoon, following major falls on world stock markets in recent weeks.
The world's seven most industrialized countries vowed Saturday they would each cancel their nation's remaining bilateral debt with quake-hit Haiti, Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said.
Former Japanese Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa, who was forced to resign after appearing drunk at a G7 news conference earlier this year, was found dead in his Tokyo home. The cause of his death has not yet been determined.
Top finance representatives from the Group of Seven rich nations meeting in Istanbul on Saturday are expected to address the weak dollar. Speaking on Friday, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde (photo) stressed the need for a strong dollar.
The crisis-fighting efforts of the G20 saved the world from a dangerous economic depression and have highlighted the role of developing nations in shaping the future global economy, leaders said in an end-of-summit statement on Friday.
Signalling the growing importance of emerging economies, US President Barack Obama is set to announce that the G20 will take on a permanent role at the helm of the world economy, trumping the elite G7 and G8 clubs.
The world's seven biggest nations met as part of the G7 in Washington on Friday to deliver a tentative message of hope. There are signs that the economy might be heading towards recovery by the year's end, or so they say.
World finance chiefs from the G7 and G20 countries have met in Washington to assess progress on combating the global economic crisis. Some of the officials gathered in the US capital also reported possible "green shoots" of recovery.
The International Monetary Fund forecast on Thursday that, for 2009, Japan would contract 5.8 percent, the eurozone 3.2 percent, and 2.6 percent in the US.
