Final Communiqué: Meeting of G20 Finance 

Ministers and Central Bank Governors

Washington DC, April 20, 2012

1. We, the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors, met to assess progress 

on the fulfillment of the mandates given to us by our Leaders and to address ongoing 

economic and financial challenges and promote robust growth and job creation.

2. Recent economic developments point to the continuation of a modest global 

recovery, supported by some significant policy actions that have taken place since our 

last meeting. The tail risks facing the global economy only months ago have started to 

recede. However, growth expectations for 2012 remain moderate, deleveraging is 

constraining consumption and investment growth, volatility remains high partly reflecting 

financial market pressures in Europe and downside risks still persist. We remain 

committed to further reduce these risks. High levels of public and private indebtedness, 

the need for structural reforms, insufficient global rebalancing, and persistent 

unemployment and development gaps continue to weigh on medium-term global growth 

prospects. In the context of high unemployment and indebtedness in many countries, 

supporting growth and job creation, structural reforms, restoring medium-term fiscal 

sustainability and promoting global rebalancing remain at the core of our commitments. 

In addition, protecting investment is crucial for the global recovery and, in accordance to 

the mandate by our Leaders in Cannes, we reaffirm our commitment to avoid 

protectionism. Vigilant of high oil prices, G20 members stand ready to carry out 

additional actions as needed and welcome the commitments by producing countries to 

ensure adequate supply.

3. We have made progress in implementing the commitments established in the Cannes 

Action Plan for growth and jobs, as well as taken additional actions consistent with our 

shared objectives for strong, sustainable and balanced growth. These commitments 

remain fully relevant. Complete and timely implementation is critical, though more needs 

to be done. We agreed today on the main elements of the accountability assessment 

that will be carried out in order to enhance monitoring of the implementation of our 

commitments, as mandated by our Leaders in Cannes. We have also agreed on the 

main priority areas for further policy actions that should be reflected in the Los Cabos 

Action Plan that will be announced by our Leaders in June, including on fiscal, financial, 

structural, monetary and exchange rate, trade and development policies. We took note 

of a preliminary report by the international organizations on how the G20 framework can 

contribute to job creation, with the final report being presented at the Los Cabos 

Summit. These are important initiatives as increasing growth, infrastructure financing, 

employment and social inclusion are at the heart of all our actions.

4. We remain committed to take the necessary actions to secure global financial 

stability. We welcome the euro area members’ decisions in March to strengthen 

European firewalls as part of broader reform efforts and the availability of central bank 
swap lines. Together with the IMFC we have reached agreement to enhance IMF 

resources for crisis prevention and resolution. This is the result of a broad international 

cooperative effort that includes a significant number of countries. There are firm 

commitments to increase resources made available to the IMF by over $430 billion in 

addition to the quota increase under the 2010 Reform. These resources will be available 

for the whole membership of the IMF, and not earmarked for any particular region. The 

resources would be channeled through temporary bilateral loans and note purchase 

agreements to the IMF’s General Resources Account. Should it become necessary to 

use these resources, adequate risk mitigation features, conditionality and burden 

sharing among official creditors would apply, as approved by the IMF Board. This effort, 

together with the national and regional structural, fiscal, and monetary actions that have 

been put in place in the past months, shows the commitment of the international

community to safeguard global financial stability and put the global economic recovery 

on a sounder footing.

5. We reaffirmed our commitment to fully implement the 2010 Governance and Quota 

Reform by the 2012 IMF/World Bank Annual Meeting. We will continue to contribute 

towards a comprehensive review of the IMF quota formula by January 2013 and the 

completion of the next general review of quotas by January 2014, fulfilling the 

commitments made in Seoul and Cannes. We reaffirm that the distribution of quotas 

should better reflect the relative weights of IMF members in the world economy which 

have changed substantially in view of strong growth in dynamic emerging markets and 

developing countries.

6. We welcome recent initiatives on IMF surveillance, and agree that the current 

surveillance framework should be significantly enhanced. This process should help 

achieve a better integration of bilateral and multilateral surveillance, with a focus on 

global, domestic and financial stability, including spillovers from countries policies. This 

could be achieved through a careful use of Article IV consultations. We welcome the 

progress by the IMF in advancing consideration of an integrated surveillance decision 

and commit to support the decision process. We underscore the importance of rigorous 

surveillance on exchange rate policies and support a more ample coverage of 

surveillance activities, where relevant, including global liquidity, capital flows, capital 

account measures, reserve and fiscal, monetary and financial sector policies that could 

have an impact on external stability. We welcome the ongoing work to produce an 

external sector report, which would strengthen multilateral analysis and enhance the 

transparency of surveillance. We also recognize that political ownership and traction is 

critical to effective surveillance, and that the IMFC has a role in facilitating the active 

involvement of all IMF members. We call on the IMF to address issues that constrain 

effective surveillance as identified by the IEO.

7. We assessed progress on the implementation of our financial regulatory reform 

agenda as outlined in our February 2012 Communiqué in order to deliver on our 

commitments looking ahead to the Los Cabos Leaders’ Summit, and reaffirmed our 

commitment to common global standards by pursuing the financial regulatory reform 

agenda according to our agreed timetable in an internationally consistent and non-
discriminatory manner. We take note of the work to date by the FSB and BCBS on the 

modalities for extending the SIFI framework to domestic systemically important banks 

(D-SIBs), and look forward to the completion of this work by November 2012 and 

welcome the FSB progress report on strengthening the oversight and regulation of the 

shadow banking system to mitigate potential systemic risk and look forward to its final 

recommendations by end-2012. We support the work of the Working Group on FSB 

Capacity, Resources and Governance to put the FSB on an enduring organizational 

footing while preserving the strong links with the BIS and look forward to Leaders 

receiving the Group’s recommendations in June 2012; the work coordinated by the FSB 

to provide safeguards supportive of a global framework for central counterparties 

(CCPs) as an important element in achieving the agreed OTC derivatives reforms, so 

that authorities can make informed decisions on the standards and requirements of 

CCPs to meet by end-2012 their commitment that all standardized OTC derivatives be 

centrally cleared in CCPs with the appropriate safeguards; and the efforts of the IASB 

and FASB to achieve convergence to a globally accepted set of high quality accounting 

standards and urge them to meet their target of issuing standards on key convergence 

projects by mid-2013, at the latest, in order to achieve a single set of high quality 

international accounting standards. We look forward for the completion of the study, 

coordinated by the FSB with the IMF and the World Bank, to identify the extent to which 

the agreed regulatory reforms may have unintended consequences for Emerging 

Markets and Developing Economies. We support the work of the FSB on the global 

governance framework for the legal entity identifier and look forward to its 

recommendations in June on establishing a global LEI system. We support work on 

developing for consultation, internationally consistent standards on margining for noncentrally cleared OTC derivatives by June 2012.

8. We reiterate our call upon all countries to join the Global Forum on transparency and 

to sign on the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Assistance. We look forward to an 

interim report by the OECD for the Los Cabos Summit on progress made and on a new 

set of reviews and on necessary steps to improve comprehensive information 

exchange. We welcome the ongoing work by the FSB on adherence to supervisory and 

regulatory information exchange and cooperation standards. We support the renewal of 

the FATF mandate, sustaining global efforts to combat money laundering and the 

financing of terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

9. As an important complement of the G20 financial regulation agenda, we agreed to 

follow through on the five recommendations of the 2011 Global Partnership for Financial 

Inclusion report, endorsed in Cannes, and take the financial inclusion agenda forward 

towards concrete results and we agreed to present to our Leaders at the Los Cabos 

Summit the G20 Basic Set of Financial Inclusion Indicators, which will assist countries, 

policymakers and stakeholders in focusing global efforts on measuring and sustainably 

tracking progress on access to financial services globally. We acknowledge the efforts 

of those G20 and non-G20 countries willing to commit to national coordination platforms 

and strategies for financial inclusion under the "G20 Financial Inclusion Peer Learning 

Program" at the Los Cabos Summit as well as the ongoing efforts and the importance of 

coordinated support, policy advice and technical assistance by GPFI implementing 
partners, other stakeholders, including the UN, and bilateral donors and request their 

continued support to national strategic planning, implementation and data initiatives in 

support of financial inclusion. On financial education we recognize the importance and 

relevance of the work that the OECD, its International Network on Financial Education 

(INFE), and the World Bank have been doing in this topic and look forward for the 

OECD/INFE High Level Principles on National Strategies for Financial Education to be 

presented to our Leaders for their consideration at the Los Cabos Summit. For 

advancing our financial consumer protection agenda we recognize the importance of 

the International Financial Consumer Protection Network (FinCoNet) as a global 

network of market conduct financial authorities. We also ask the G20/OECD Task Force 

on financial consumer protection to develop with the FSB effective approaches to 

support the implementation of the High Level Principles endorsed in Cannes, and 

recognize the importance of an active participation in this process. We recognize the 

need for women to gain access to financial services and financial education, and call for 

the GPFI and OECD/INFE to identify additional barriers women may face.

10. We welcome the participation of the International Organizations on the assessment 

of the macroeconomic impacts of excessive commodity price volatility on growth and 

their identification of policy options that countries could consider as per their national 

circumstances to mitigate any such effects. We will report to Leaders in Los Cabos on 

these policy options and their implications for our national agendas.

11. We reaffirm our commitments to enhance the transparency and functioning of 

energy markets. We will work to improve the JODI-Oil database and work on applying 

the same principles to JODI-Gas, and to rationalize and phase out inefficient fossil fuel 

subsidies over the medium term, while providing targeted support for the poorest, and 

report on progress made to our Leaders in Los Cabos. We look forward to the IOSCO 

progress report on the implementation of its Principles for the Regulation and 

Supervision of Commodities Derivatives Markets at our next meeting in November. We 

welcome the consultation by IOSCO on the functioning and oversight of price reporting 

agencies and look forward to an update on their emerging recommendations for leaders 

in Los Cabos.

12. We received the preliminary report prepared by the OECD, the World Bank and UN 

on inserting green growth and sustainable development policies into structural reform 

agendas and look forward for the final version to be delivered to our Leaders. We 

welcome G20 countries voluntary self-reporting on current actions to integrate green 

growth and sustainable development into structural reform agendas.

13. We will continue to work on climate finance with the establishment of a G20 study 

group to consider ways to effectively mobilize resources and support the 

operationalization process of the Green Climate Fund taking into account the objectives, 

provisions and principles of the UNFCCC.

14. We appreciate G20 countries contributions and involvement in promoting Disaster 

Risk Management (DRM), and welcome the efforts made so far by the World Bank and 
OECD, with support from the UN to prepare a compilation of country experiences to be 

presented to our Leaders in Los Cabos, and towards having, by November, a voluntary 

framework aimed to facilitate the assessment of risk and financial strategies towards 

implementing DRM.