Strong and lasting recovery is essential

• Pages: 110-

Page 110

Following is the text of the statement of the Group of Seven issued on April 12 in Washington, D.C.

We met today at a time in which the world economy faces many challenges. In this light, we reaffirm our commitment to multilateral cooperation.

Growth in most of our economies has been subdued, though uncertainties have diminished. A strong and lasting recovery is essential for our own countries and for the world. To this end, we each commit to pursue sound macroeconomic policies that support sustained growth. In a low-inflation, low-interest-rate environment, there is potential for higher growth through productivity-enhancing structural reforms, and to buttress investor confidence through continued improvements in corporate governance practices, market discipline, and transparency.We will respond as needed to developments in the economic environment.

We will continue to monitor exchange markets closely and cooperate as appropriate.We underscore the importance to global growth and poverty reduction of successful trade liberalization through the timely implementation of the Doha Development Agenda, notably in financial services.

We encourage all emerging market countries to pursue sound policies and to enhance their investment climates. These policies will help attract financial flows, importantly including foreign direct investment, to reduce external vulnerabilities and to support sustained growth.We welcome the strong macroeconomic policies and ambitious structural reforms that Brazil's authorities are implementing.

We reiterate our commitment to strengthen crisis prevention and resolution measures.We are pleased to see progress being made on each element of our action plan [see box, page 111] of last April, as detailed in the accompanying update.We will continue to work to further implementation in this area.

We reaffirm our strong commitment to combat terrorist financing and pledge to maintain the momentum we have achieved thus far.We will work with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the United Nations, and the international financial institutions to implement the work plan that we endorsed in February.We welcome the action plan of the IMF and the World Bank and are...