Brussels, 29/02/2016 (Agence Europe) - Meeting on Saturday 27 February, the world's major financial policy-makers, who fear a downturn of the global economy, identified the shock of the theoretical exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union among the downside risks to economic recovery, which remains fragile.
“Downside risks and vulnerabilities have risen”, reads the final statement of the 'Finance G20', citing “volatile” capital flows, “a large drop” in commodity prices, escalated geopolitical tensions, “the shock of a potential UK exit from the European Union” and a “large and increasing” number of refugees in some regions of the world.
Anticipating that economic growth will continue at a “moderate pace”, the Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors of the 20 largest economies on the planet reiterate their commitment to make use of all “monetary, fiscal and structural” tools at their disposal to stimulate economic activity, for instance by means of an increased effort in terms of structural and investment reforms. They hope to lay down priorities to apply their agenda of reforms and develop indicators to assess progress made in the measures taken and the appropriateness of these. As regards investment, they call on the multilateral banks to determine an adequate level of ambition for high-quality infrastructure projects capable of attracting a broad range of long-term investors.
As regards the financial architecture, the 'Finance G20' intends to step up its monitoring of capital flows and identify the risks of these more rapidly. It supports the work underway at the Basel Committee to “refine” the 'Basel III' banking prudential framework in order to guarantee coherence and maximise its effectiveness “without further significantly increasing overall capital requirements”.
Lastly, the financial policy-makers stress the “crucial” need for a “extensive, coherent and effective” implementation of the 'BEPS' plan of the OECD to fight aggressive tax optimisation by multinational companies. The standards for the exchange of fiscal information by request and automatically will apply “by 2017 or late 2018”, they indicate. They go on to encourage all non-G20 countries, including the developing countries, to get involved in the action plan on an equal footing. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)