Finance ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) group of industrialised nations issued a strongly-worded communiqué at the end of their two-day meeting on 14 February in Rome, pledging to avoid protectionism and agreeing on the need for 'exceptional measures' to restore economic and financial stability.

The seven countries – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US – agreed on a range of measures including measures to restore long-term credit flows, reform of the International Monetary Fund and the Financial Stability Forum and regulatory reform. They also singled out China, one of the major emerging economies that will be present at the London Summit, for their fiscal stimulus package.

Although the G7 includes fewer than a half of the countries that will attend the London Summit of the G20 on 2 April, the communiqué shows agreement on many of the key issues that are likely to be up for debate at the larger meeting. Russia, which is a member of the G8 and G20, attended as observers as did leaders of the IMF, World Bank and World Trade Organisation.

Alistair Darling, the British Chancellor, described this weekend's meeting as a ‘stepping stone’ towards the London Summit of  developed and developing nations meeting in London. He said: ‘I believe we are seeing now determination by countries right across the world to help families and businesses in their own countries but also to work together to sort out the continuing banking problems so we can get lending going again.’

As had been widely predicted before the meeting, several ministers spoke out against the danger of governments putting up protectionist barriers. Timothy Geithner, the new US Treasury Secretary, said: ‘All countries need to sustain a commitment to open trade and investment policies which are essential to economic growth and prosperity.’

Some people have criticised the US Government’s ‘Buy America’ clause in its fiscal stimulus package. But Giulio Tremonti, Italian finance minister and chair of the summit, said ministers knew ‘Buy America’ was ‘a slogan’. ‘At the G7 we talked about ‘buy America’ as a slogan. I don't think the measures taken so far in the world are dangerous or indicative of dangerous tendencies.’

Significantly, Tremonti said that the work carried out by the G7 would be passed on to the G20 ahead of the London Summit. Peer Steinbruek, the German finance minister, echoed that saying: ‘From the German view, we have a great interest in there being very concrete results in London.’

Source: London Summit website