WASHINGTON (MNI) – The following is the text of communique of the
April meeting of the Group of 20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank
Governors released Friday:

1. We, the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors, met in
Washington D.C. to ensure the global economic recovery and the
transition to a strong, sustainable and balanced growth as well as our
agendas for the financial regulatory reform and international financial
institutions remain on track.

2. The global recovery has progressed better than previously
anticipated largely due to the G20’s unprecedented and concerted policy
effort. However, it is proceeding at different speeds within and across
regions, and unemployment is still high in many economies. We recognize
that in such circumstances different policy responses are required. In
economies where growth is still highly dependent on policy support and
consistent with sustainable public finances, it should be maintained
until the recovery is firmly driven by the private sector and becomes
more entrenched. Some countries are already exiting. We should all
elaborate credible exit strategies from extraordinary macroeconomic and
financial support measures that are tailored to individual country
circumstances while taking into account any spillovers. We emphasized
the necessity to pursue well coordinated economic policies that are
consistent with sound public finances; price stability; stable,
efficient and resilient financial systems; employment creation; and
poverty reduction. Countries who have the capacity should expand
domestic sources of growth. This would help cushion a decline in demand
from countries that should boost savings and reduce fiscal deficits.

3. Our Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth for
the global economy is a key mechanism through which we will continue to
work together to address the challenges associated with achieving a
durable recovery and our shared objectives. In accordance with our
timetable set out in St Andrews, we have conducted, with support from
the IMF and World Bank, the initial phase of our cooperative and
consultative mutual assessment process for the Framework by sharing our
national and regional policy frameworks, programs and projections,
assessing their collective consistency with our objectives, and
producing a forward-looking assessment of global economic prospects. We
further provided guidance to the IMF, and other international
organizations, to assist us in assessing collective implications of
national policies that could improve our global economic prospects and
bring us closer to our shared objectives. For this purpose, we have
agreed on principles to direct the development of alternative policy
scenarios and have further elaborated the objectives of strong,
sustainable and balanced growth as outlined in the Annex to this
Communique. Drawing on these inputs we will deliver an initial set of
policy options for consideration by our Leaders at the June 2010 Summit.

4. Recognizing the increasingly integrated nature of the financial
regulatory reform issues, we reaffirmed our strong commitment to fully
implement our reform agenda on the timelines agreed by Leaders in London
and Pittsburgh. Good progress is being made and, to maintain the
momentum, we:

reaffirmed our reform is multi-faceted but at its core must be
stronger capital standards, complemented by clear incentives to mitigate
excessive risk-taking practices. We recommitted to developing by
end-2010 internationally agreed rules to improve both the quantity and
quality of bank capital and to discourage excessive leverage. These
rules will be phased in as financial conditions improve and economic
recovery is assured, with the aim of implementation by end-2012.
Implementation of these new rules should be complemented by strong
supervision. We stressed the importance of the quantitative and
macroeconomic impact studies underway and look forward to an update on
their progress by the FSB for our June meeting.

agreed to closely review the progress of and provide guidance and
strong support for the work of the FSB, BCBS and IMF. We support the
work of the FSB to develop prudential standards, market infrastructures
to contain the propagation of shocks and resolution tools and frameworks
for systemically important financial institutions and look forward to a
progress report for our meeting in June 2010. We look forward to
receiving the IMF’s final report on the range of options that countries
have adopted or are considering as to how the financial sector could
make a fair and substantial contribution towards paying for any burdens
associated with government interventions to repair the banking system.
We call on the IMF for further work on options to ensure domestic
financial institutions bear the burden of any extraordinary government
interventions where they occur, address their excessive risk taking and
help promote a level playing field, taking into consideration individual
country’s circumstances. We welcomed the FSB, IMF and BCBS’s joint
report on the inter-linkages between these issues and noted that, moving
forward, we need to take into account the cumulative impact of the
reforms on the financial system and the wider economy to move
unequivocally in the direction of sound and stronger capital and
liquidity framework ; and

stressed the importance of achieving a single set of high quality,
global accounting standards; implementing international standards with
regard to compensation practices and welcomed the FSB’s report;
completing the development of standards for central clearing and trading
on exchanges or electronic platforms of all standardized
over-the-counter derivative contracts, where appropriate, and reporting
to trade repositories of all over-the-counter derivative contracts; and
consistent and coordinated oversight of hedge funds and credit rating
agencies. We welcomed the progress by the Financial Action Task Force in
the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing, particularly
regarding the issue of a public statement on jurisdictions with
strategic deficiencies last February. We also welcomed the report by the
Global Forum on Tax Transparency and Exchange of Information, the launch
of the peer review process, and the development of a multilateral
mechanism for information exchange which will be open to all countries.
We welcomed the launch of the evaluation process by the FSB on the
adherence to prudential information exchange and cooperation standards
in all jurisdictions.

5. We noted the draft report on the scope of energy subsidies and
suggestions for the implementation of the Pittsburgh commitment from the
IEA, OPEC, OECD and World Bank. In accordance with country ownership and
circumstances and recognizing the importance of providing those in need
with essential energy services, we recommitted to prepare strategies and
timetables for our meeting in June to rationalize and phase out, over
the medium term, of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage
wasteful consumption.

6. We urged progress to deliver on the representation and
governance reforms of the International Financial Institutions agreed in
Pittsburgh. We urged the IMF to deliver the quota and governance reforms
by the November Seoul Summit. We look forward to an agreement on a
package of voice reforms and World Bank financial resources, together
with reforms to ensure effectiveness, at the upcoming Development
Committee meeting. We will work towards ambitious IDA16 and African
Development Fund replenishments. We welcomed the agreement in principle
to increase the capital of the IADB and EBRD and to adopt a robust
reform agenda and look forward to the conclusion of discussions on
general capital increase of the African Development Bank. We agreed to
support full relief of Haiti’s debt by all IFIs, including through
burden sharing, and welcomed the agreement at the IADB and World Bank to
relieve its debt and the establishment of the Haiti Reconstruction Fund.

7. We acknowledged the progress achieved by the Financial Inclusion
Experts Group and look forward to the successful launch of the ‘SME
Finance Challenge’. We welcomed the work of the Financial Safety Nets
Experts Group and agreed to look at policy options to improve global
financial safety nets, based on sound incentives, to better assist
countries to deal with volatility in global capital flows. Inefficient
markets and excess volatility in commodity prices more generally
negatively affect both producers and consumers. We will finalize our
work to address excessive commodity price volatility by improving the
functioning and transparency of physical and financial markets in both
producing and consuming countries.

8. We agreed to meet again on June 4-5 2010 in Busan, Republic of
Korea, to prepare for the June Leaders’ Summit in Toronto, Canada.

** Market News International Washington Bureau: 202-371-2121 **

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