Brussels, 15/04/2011 (Agence Europe) - The G20 finance ministers and central bankers have been meeting in Washington since Thursday 14 April 2011 for the G20 summit on financial issues. The holder of the rotating G20 presidency, France, explained through French Finance Minster Christine Lagarde that it wants the world's big powers to publish indicative guidelines on how to assess macroeconomic stresspoints, using the indicators decided upon in February in Paris (see EUROPE 10320) to identify imbalanced economies that need further study. Stricter assessment criteria may be used for countries whose GDP accounts for more than 5% of the world's GDP. The politicians and central bankers will be considering the next stages of the peer assessment programme that will help develop an action plan for strong, balanced growth, to be unveiled at the G20 summit in Cannes, France, in November 2011.
Commodities. Another issue on the agenda of the G20 finance meeting is reform of the international monetary system after the Nanjing conference (see EUROPE 10348), a balance sheet of reforms in the financial industry and preventing volatility on the raw materials and commodities markets. On the latter point, Europeans believe that greater transparency is crucial and in a draft conclusions document discussed last week but to not be formally published until May, the EU27 say that upper limits on commodity investment and futures could reduce speculation on the commodity derivatives markets (see EUROPE 10355). (M.B./transl.fl)