G20-ontmoeting in Washington: stimuleren van groei door middel van concrete maatregelen (en)

Lithuanian Finance MinisterRimantas Šadžius, chairing the ECOFIN Council, presented the EU experience on improving access to funding for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and thus fostering financing for long-term investment.

The global economy, financial stability and financing for investment formed the core items during the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors’ Meeting, which was held in Washington DC on 10-11 October. Finance ministers and Governors agreed that there are plenty of ideas to foster growth; however, concrete actions are required in order to implement these ideas.

“The G20 acknowledges that global recovery remains uneven and fragile. In the fight against the unemployment, which is one of the greatest global challenges, fiscal discipline should be also followed by structural reforms, contributing to growth", said Lithuanian Finance Minister Rimantas Šadžius..

In this field world leading countries have agreed to support improvements on the investment climate, to stimulate investment of both private and public sectors for infrastructure and SMEs; as well as to improve the processes and transparency of investment projects.

Financing for investment is one of the current topics on the European Union agenda. At the Informal ECOFIN meeting, which took place in Vilnius in September, the EU Finance Ministers exchanged views on the options of innovative risk-sharing instruments provided by the European Commission and the European Investment Bank (EIB). The initiative aims to help SMEs by providing financial institutions (banks) with risk-sharing instruments - through guarantees and/or securitisation. The Ministers reached an informal agreement and will come back to this question at the October ECOFIN meeting in Luxembourg next week.

“Despite the fact that SMEs play an essential role in the economy, they often face the lack of credit resources. That is the obstacle for growth and thus we must find ways to help these enterprises. I believe that the risk-sharing instruments proposed by the European Commission and the EIB will foster the access to funding for SMEs and the outcome will lead to investment into the economy, including job creation”, said the Lithuanian Finance Minister chairing the ECOFIN Council.

The G20 also emphasised the urgent need to immediately ratify the 2010 IMF Quota and Governance Reform, which will result in enhancing the representation of emerging markets and developing countries and increasing the legitimacy of the IMF.

The Lithuanian Presidency represented by Finance Minister Rimantas Šadžius together with the European Commission and the European Central Bank represented the interests of the European Union at the G20 meeting.

Additional information

The G20 includes 19 members plus the European Union. These countries provide almost 90% of global GDP, cover almost 80% of world trade and make up two thirds of the world population. Countries belonging to the G20 are: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Republic of South Africa, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.