Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu (6th left), finance ministers and central bank governors gather for a group photo of the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in Ankara, Turkey, on Saturday. — Reuters ANKARA — The Group of 20 leading economies have agreed that an overemphasis on monetary policy will not lead to balanced growth, according to a delegate who had seen the latest version of the draft communique from a meeting of G20 finance chiefs. While monetary policy has been a key focus at the meeting of finance ministers and central bankers in the Turkish capital Ankara this week, several policy makers have also called for accelerated structural reforms. There is a shared belief among the members of the Group of 20 leading economies in the need to “double down” against competitive currency devaluation and avoid it in both policy and language, a senior US Treasury official said on Saturday. Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the G20 meeting of central bankers and finance ministers in the Turkish capital Ankara, the official said the final communique from the meeting was expected to address competitive devaluation, where countries attempt to drive down a currency to boost exports. “You can make policy decisions that lead to competitive devaluation, (or) you can say things that lead to talking down a currency,” the official said. “There is a shared sense that the G20 needs to double down on its principle that competitive devaluation is a bad thing.” Currencies have come into sharp focus at the G20 meeting, after China devalued the yuan in a surprise move in August, sparking market turmoil. But Beijing appears to have learned about the importance of transparency in the communication of monetary policy from its latest market turmoil, the official said. A draft of the communique obtained by Reuters on Friday showed that G20 members will likely to reiterate a promise to “refrain from competitive devaluations and resist all forms of protectionism”. Finance chiefs from the Group of 20 leading economies agree on the need to undertake structural reforms to boost productivity against a backdrop of loose monetary policy, Britain's Finance Minister George Osborne said on Saturday. “I'm very clear, as indeed are many people sitting around the table, that countries need to live within their means,” Osborne told Reuters in an interview, when asked whether there had been discussion of a need for more fiscal stimulus at a meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bankers in Ankara. “What I think we're all agreeing on is that there does need to be, alongside the very accommodative monetary policy in many countries you see, real structural reforms.” Weaker global growth has made it tougher for the Group of 20 leading nations to meet targets they agreed to last year in Australia to expand their economies, Canadian Finance Minister Joe Oliver said on Saturday. “We're making progress, but the base that we hoped we would have, we haven't arrived at because the growth has been disappointing and the projections have been downgraded,” Oliver told reporters during the G20 finance chiefs meeting in Ankara. “It's become more challenging... we're just encouraging all countries to make the kinds of changes that their action plans commit them to.” The G20 agreed last year in BrisbaneAustralia to boost their collective economic output by an additional 2 percent over five years through structural reforms and other measures. — Agencies
