Editor's Note:

SUSRIS will provide special reports from the Pittsburgh Summit through email, updates to a SUSRIS.org special section and through the SUSRIS blog. Check the SUSRIS.org homepage for all the Summit update links.

Group of Twenty Summit Concludes with Plans for Sustainable Growth and Reforms
by Patrick W. Ryan

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Sept 25 – The Group of Twenty key industrialized and developing countries completed a two-day Summit agreeing to launch a new framework for strong, sustainable and balanced growth by November. In the Summit communique the leaders, from the European Union and 19 countries that contain most of the world’s population and economic power, claimed success in pulling the global economy back from the “the edge of depression” faced when they last met in April.

The Summit leaders said the largest and most coordinated financial stimulus ever undertaken was behind the transition from crisis to recovery. However, they warned that a sense of normalcy should not lead to complacency and that the process of recovery remains incomplete. 

The Saudi Arabian delegation was led by Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal, and included Minister of Finance, Dr. Ibrahim Al-Assaf and the Governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), Dr. Muhammad Al-Jasser.

Among the measures agreed to is a “Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth,” a compact that commits them to work together to assess how policies fit together, to evaluate whether they are collectively consistent with sustainable and balanced growth, and to act as necessary to meet the common objectives of the group. 

The Summit communiqué called for reform of the global economic architecture including designation of the G-20 as the “premier forum for international economic cooperation” and the establishment of a Financial Stability Board to coordinate and monitor progress in strengthening financial regulation. The International Monetary Fund quota system will be revised to reflect “dynamic emerging markets and developing countries” and recognize those countries that are currently under-represented. 

In the energy sector the communiqué called for the phasing out of fossil fuel subsidies and promoting energy market transparency and market stability as part of a wider effort to avoid market volatility. 

The G-20 convened with plans set for follow-up action at the next meeting in June 2010 in Canada and then in Korea in November 2010. 

SUSRIS will provide special reports from the Pittsburgh Summit through email, updates to a SUSRIS.org special section and through the SUSRIS blog. Check the www.SUSRIS.org homepage for all the Summit update links.

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• Group of Twenty Summit Pittsburgh - SUSRIS Special Section