G7 nations ‘in agreement on fiscal policy’, says UK chancellor

13 May 13
The Group of Seven leading nations are in closer agreement on the right way to improve their public finances than is widely assumed, UK Chancellor George Osborne said after hosting a weekend summit.

By Nick Mann | 13 May 2013

The Group of Seven leading nations are in closer agreement on the right way to improve their public finances than is widely assumed, UK Chancellor George Osborne said after hosting a weekend summit.

The meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors discussed the importance of having ‘credible country-specific, medium-term fiscal consolidation plans’, Osborne said.

The seven nations agreed on the need to ensure both sustainable public finances and growth and 'to focus on structural deficits so as to ensure near-term flexibility, such as by allowing automatic stabilisers to work’.

Osborne added: ‘This meeting confirmed there are more areas of agreement between us on fiscal policy than is commonly assumed.’

The chancellor said the main conclusion from the two days of discussions between the ministers was that there were still many challenges to achieving a sustainable global recovery.

‘But we are committed, as the advanced economies, to playing our part in nurturing that recovery and ensuring a lasting recovery so that we have prosperity in all our countries,’ he stressed.

During the meeting, Osborne said that a key priority for the UK during its year-long presidency of both the G7 and the larger Group of Eight leading nations was collective action to tackle tax avoidance and evasion.

‘We discussed the development of a new multilateral global standard on the automatic exchange of information based on the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, and action to improve the transparency of legal structures. It’s vital that both developed and developing countries can collect the tax that is due to them,’ he said.

He added: ‘It’s incredibly important that companies and individuals pay the tax that is due, and this is important not just for Britain and British taxpayers but also for many developing nations as well.’

The G& nations are the UK, US, Germany, Japan, Italy, France and Canada. The G8 includes Russia.

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