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The G20 Leaders Declaration – St. Petersburg 2013

September 6, 2013

G20 LEADERS’ DECLARATION – Saint Petersburg Summit

5-6 September 2013

Preamble

1.  We, the Leaders of the G20, met in St Petersburg on 5-6 September 2013, united by our continued commitment to work together to strengthen the global economy.
2.  Strengthening  growth  and  creating  jobs  is  our  top  priority  and  we  are  fully committed  to  taking  decisive  actions  to  return  to  a  job-rich,  strong,  sustainable  and balanced growth path.
3.  In the five years since we first met, coordinated action by the G20 has been critical to tackling the financial crisis and putting the world economy on a path to recove ry. But our work is not yet complete and we agreed that it remains critical for G20 countries to focus  all  our  joint  efforts  on  engineering  a  durable  exit  from  the  longest  and  most protracted crisis in modern history.
4.  Our  most  urgent  need  is  to  increase  the  momentum  of  the  global  recovery, generate higher growth and better jobs, while strengthening the foundations for long-term growth and avoiding policies that could cause the recovery to falter or promote growth at other countries’ expense.
5.  We understand that sound and sustainable economic growth will be firmly based on increased and predictable investments, trust and transparency, as well as on effective regulation as part of the market policy and practice.
6.  As Leaders of the world’s largest economies, we share responsibility for reinforcing the  open  and  rules-based  global  economic  system.   We  are  committed  to  working cooperatively to address key global economic challenges:

•  Achieving a stronger recovery while ensuring fiscal sustainability. We have today agreed the St Petersburg Action Plan, which sets out our strategies to achieve strong, sustainable and balanced growth.

• Unemployment and underemployment, particularly among young people. We areunited in the resolve to achieve better quality and more productive jobs. Coordinated and integrated  public  policies  (macroeconomic,  financial,  fiscal,  education,  skills development, innovation, employment and social protection) are key to reach this goal.We today committed to continue our efforts to support inclusive labour markets, with the exchange of country-specific plans or sets of actions, developed as appropriate according to our different constitutional circumstances.

• Importance of long-term financing for investment, including for infrastructure and SMEs to boost economic growth, job creation and development. Today we endorsed the work plan that helped us to assess factors affecting the availability and accessibility of long-term financing for investment and committed to identify and start to implement a  set 4 of  collective  and  country-specific  measures  that  tangibly  improve  our  domestic investment environments.

• Free and rules-based trade fosters economic opportunities. We stress the crucial importance of strong multilateral trading system and call on all t he WTO members to show the necessary flexibility and reach a successful outcome in this year’s multilateral trade negotiations. We extend our commitment to refrain from protectionist measures and aim at enhancing transparency in trade, including in regional trade agreements.

• Cross-border tax evasion and avoidance undermine our public finances and our people’s trust in the fairness of the tax system. Today, we endorsed plans to address these problems and committed to take steps to change our rules to tackle  tax avoidance, harmful practices, and aggressive tax planning.

• We  have  agreed  and  are  implementing  a  broad  range  of  financial  reforms  to address the major fault lines that caused the crisis. We are building more resilient financial institutions,  making  substantial  progress  towards  ending  too-big-to-fail,  increasing transparency and market integrity, filling regulatory gaps and addressing the risks from shadow  banking.  We  will  pursue  our  work  to  build  a  safe,  reliable  financial  system responsive to the needs of our citizens.

•  G20 countries have a responsibility to ensure that all people have an opportunity to gain from strong, sustainable and balanced growth. We endorse the St Petersburg Development Outlook to focus our efforts on concrete steps to improve food security, financial inclusion, infrastructure, human resource development and domestic resource mobilization.

• Corruption  impedes  sustainable  economic  growth  and  poverty  reduction, threatening financial  stability  and  economy  as  a  whole. We  will  hold  ourselves  to our commitment to implement the G20 Anti-Corruption Action Plan, combating domestic and foreign  bribery,  tackling  corruption  in  high-risk  sectors,  strengthening  international cooperation  and  promoting  public  integrity  and  transparency  in  the  f ight  against corruption. Recognizing the need for sustained and concerted efforts we endorse the St Petersburg Strategic Framework.

• We  share  a  common interest  in developing cleaner,  more efficient  and  reliable energy supplies, as well as more transparent physical and financial commodity markets. We commit to enhance energy cooperation, to make energy market data more accurate and available and to take steps to support the development of cleaner and more efficient energy  technologies  to  enhance  the  efficiency  of  markets  and  shift  towards  a  more sustainable energy future. We underscore our commitment to work together to address climate change and environment protection, which is a global problem that requires a global solution.

•  We will continue to develop comprehensive growth strategies to achieve stronger, more sustainable and balanced growth in the context of fiscal sustainability.

7.  Too many of our citizens have yet to participate in the economic global recovery that  is  underway.  The  G20  must  strive  not  only  for  strong,  sustainable  and  balanced growth but also for a more inclusive pattern of growth that will better mobilize the talents of our entire populations.
8.  Cooperation, Coordination and Confidence is what we will continue to strive for. Global  Economy  and  G20  Framework  for  Strong,  Sustainable  and Balanced Growth
9.  We have taken a number of important policy actions that have helped to contain key  tail  risks,  improve  financial  market  conditions  and  sustain  the  recovery.  Private demand has strengthened in  the U.S. and growth has picked up in Japan and the U.K. There are signs of recovery in the euro area. While growth has continued in emerging market economies, it has slowed down in some of them. Global growth prospects for
2013  have  been  marked  down  repeatedly  over  the  last  year,  global  rebalancing  is incomplete,  regional  growth  disparities  remain  wide,  and  unemployment,  particularly among youth, remains unacceptably high. Despite our actions, the recovery is too weak, and risks remain tilted to the downside. In the last months financial market volatility has increased.
10.  We consider the main challenges to the global economy to be:

• Weak growth and persistently high unemployment, particularly among youth, and the need for more inclusive growth in many economies;

• Financial  market  fragmentation  in  Europe  and  the  decisive  implementation  of banking union;

• Slower growth in some emerging market economies, reflecting in some cases the effect of volatile capital flows, tighter financial conditions and commodity  price volatility, as well as domestic structural challenges;

• Insufficient levels of private investment in many countries, in part due to continuing market uncertainties, as well as internal rigidities;

• High public debt and its sustainability in some countries that need to be addressed while properly supporting the recovery in the near-term, especially in countries with the highest actual and projected debt to GDP levels;

• Volatility  of  capital  flows  as  growth  strengthens  and  there  are  expectations  of eventual monetary policy recalibration in advanced economies;

• An incomplete rebalancing of global demand; and
• Continued uncertainties about fiscal policy deliberations.

11.  To address these challenges and to place the global economy on a stronger, more sustainable and balanced growth path, we have built on our previous actions with new measures  as  set  out  in  the  St  Petersburg  Action  Plan  (Annex).  The  Action  Plan  is designed to boost economic activity and job creation, support the recovery, and address near-term risks to the outlook, while strengthening the foundations for strong, sustainable and balanced growth through ambitious and well-targeted reforms. We will act together and  implement  all  our  commitments  in  a  timely  manner  and  rigorously  monitor  this process.
12.  Our  immediate  focus  is  on  creating  the  conditions  to  increase  growth  and employment  with  timely  actions  that  build  on  the  signs  of  a  recovery  in  advanced economies to make it durable to the benefit of the whole global economy.

13.  In this respect, the euro area commits to strengthen the foundations for economic and monetary union, including through further efforts to strengthen bank balance sheets, reduce financial fragmentation and moving ahead decisively and without delay toward a banking  union.  Advanced  G20  countries  agree  to  maintain  a  flexible  approach  in implementing  their  fiscal  strategies,  while  remaining  committed  to  sustainable  public finances.   Facing  increased  financial  volatility,  emerging  markets  agree  to  take  the necessary actions to support growth and maintain stability, including efforts to improve fundamentals, increase resilience to external shocks and strengthen financial systems.
14.  Monetary policy will continue to be directed towards domestic price stability and supporting the economic recovery according to the respective mandates of central banks.
We recognize the support that has been provided to the global economy in recent years from accommodative monetary policies, including unconventional monetary policies. We remain mindful of the risks and unintended negative side effects of extended periods of monetary  easing.  We  recognize  that  strengthened  and  sustained  growth  will  be accompanied by an eventual transition toward the normalization of monetary policies. Our central  banks  have  committed  that  future  changes  to  monetary  policy  settings  will continue to be carefully calibrated and clearly communicated.
15.  We reiterate that excess volatility of financial flows and disorderly movements in exchange rates can have adverse implications for economic and financial stability, as observed recently in some emerging markets. Generally stronger policy frameworks in these countries allow them to better deal with these challenges. Sound macroeconomic policies,  structural  reforms  and  strong  prudential  frameworks  will  help  address  an increase in volatility. We will continue to monitor financial market conditions carefully.
16.  We commit to cooperate to ensure that policies implemented to support domestic growth also support global growth and financial stability and to manage their spillovers on other countries.
17.  We  reiterate  our  commitments  to  move  more  rapidly  toward  more  marketdetermined  exchange  rate  systems  and  exchange  rate  flexibility  to  reflect  underlying fundamentals, and avoid persistent exchange rate mis alignments. We will refrain from competitive devaluation and will not target our exchange rates for competitive purposes. We will resist all forms of protectionism and keep our markets open.
18.  We  are  also  committed  to  strengthening  the  foundations  for  long-term  growth through  implementing  ambitious  and  targeted  reforms  designed  to  ensure  fiscal sustainability, boost investment, increase productivity and labor force participation, and address internal and external imbalances.
19.  Achieving a stronger and sustainable recovery, while ensuring fiscal sustainability in  advanced  economies  remains  critical.  As  agreed,  all  advanced  economies  have developed credible, ambitious, and country-specific medium-term fiscal strategies. These strategies  will  be  implemented  flexibly  to  take  into  account  near-term  economic conditions, so as to support economic growth and job creation, while putting debt as a share of GDP on a sustainable path. A number of emerging market economies have also laid out key elements of their strategies to promote fiscal sustainability.
20.  Recognizing  the  need  to  push  ahead  more  urgently  with  important  structural reforms,  we  have  reset  our  reform  agenda  along  more  relevant,  concrete  and  well targeted lines. Members have committed to a wide range of reforms  to strengthen the foundations for strong, sustainable and balanced growth over the long term by boosting investment,  addressing  fundamental  weaknesses,  enhancing  productivity  and competitiveness, increasing labour force participation, improving financial  stability and credit access, and addressing internal and external imbalances. These reforms are key to  achieving  a  lasting  improvement  in  potential  growth,  job  creation  and  rebalancing demand.
21.  We are determined to achieve more progress toward broad based re-balancing of global demand. While global current account imbalances have declined, reflecting in part important  reforms  in  a  number  of  countries,  a  substantial  part  of  this  progress  has occurred due to demand compression. In order to ensure a durable improvement as global growth strengthens, we are determined to undertake further policy adjustments toward  re-balancing  global  demand  between  surplus  and  deficit  countries,  as  well  as internal rebalancing. In this respect, it is essential to achieve stronger domestic demand growth in large surplus economies, increased savings and enhanced competitiveness in deficit economies and more flexible exchange rates. We are committed to actions in all these areas and will regularly assess progress.
22.  The  St  Petersburg  Action  Plan  sets  forth  our  reforms  for  achieving  strong, sustainable and balanced growth. Further, our Accountability Assessment describes the progress  we  have  made  on  past  commitments.  We  will  identify  the  remaining  key obstacles to be addressed and reforms needed to achieve stronger, more sustainable and balanced growth in our economies. We ask our Finance Ministers to develop further the comprehensive growth strategies for presentation to the Brisbane Summit.

Full document can be download here.