G20 meeting in Sydney: Emergent markets likely to be main topic

Newsroom 21/02/2014 | 11:33

The Sydney G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting will be held over the weekend of 22-23 February 2014, with the main meeting being held on the Sunday.

There will be around 2,000 people attending the Sydney G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting. This includes Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors from all G20 nations as well as their delegations. Representatives from international organisations such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank will also be attending, as well as the G20 workforce including staff from Comcar and Treasury.

Recent events in emerging markets will more than likely dominate the talks, according to the German Minister of Finances, Wolfgang Schaeuble.

In the last few months, shares, bonds and national currency in emerging markets recorded significant drops, spurred on by concerns regarding economic growth and the American Fed reducing stimulation packets.

“We can see there are problems in some emerging states and this will the most important topic on the agenda for this reunion”, according to Schaeuble. The German minister added that “everybody must understand that first they have to do their homework and only afterwards ask for solidarity”.

Schaeuble is one of the most avid supporters of austerity measures and he highlighted the fact that he speaks from personal experience after the debt crisis, advising central banks to proceed with caution.

“We’ve recently experience problems in Europe and we used monetary policies as a tool to buy us some times. I believe the same tool needs to be used to actually fix the problems”, Schaueble says.