G20 warns of major challenges to global recovery

Market convulsions sparked by Europe's debt crisis show that major challenges remain to global economic recovery, G20 nations said on Saturday as they vowed to fix their fiscal houses.After a two-day meeting, finance ministers and central bankers from the world's leading nations said the recent events "highlight the importance of sustainable public finances" and the need for fiscal sustainability.

LONDON — Big countries’ weakening resolve to cut debt is a mistake, and surplus capital coursing through the world economy risks inflating asset bubbles and causing fresh turmoil, Canada’s finance minister said on Thursday. Jim Flaherty, in Britain to attend a two-day meeting of G7 finance ministers, told Reuters that although it was possible to reduce national debt and foster growth, it was the former which was indispensable.

OTTAWA — Finance officials from the world’s leading economies will be less focused on “currency wars” at meetings this week despite recent attention on Japan’s aggressive monetary policy, according to a senior Canadian finance official on Tuesday.

MOSCOW – Financial leaders from the world’s 20 biggest economies may have promised not to devalue their currencies to help exports, but the pledge will do little to keep exchange rates stable. While G20 finance ministers and central bank governors can promise not to devalue their currencies directly, there can be no guarantees while central banks are pumping money into economies to make them grow again.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Group of 20 nations declared on Saturday there would be no currency war and deferred plans to set new debt-cutting targets, underlining broad concern about the fragile state of the world economy.

OTTAWA • Global concerns and confusion over a possible currency war threaten to hijack talks at the summit of Group of 20 nations this week in Moscow. Finance ministers and central bankers can expect to hear calls for clarification of a widely misinterpreted statement from the group’s most powerful members that appeared to caution countries — Japan in particular — against using fiscal and monetary polices to devalue their currencies.