Broad steps needed to sustain inclusive growth: G20 officials
Policy makers should take both macroeconomic and structural policy actions to sustain inclusive growth, the G20 officials said on Sunday.
Speaking at a high-level workshop on the sidelines of G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in Chengdu, Sichuan province, Lou Jiwei, China's finance minister, emphasized that the government needs to better coordinate the relationship between structural reforms and the use of macroeconomic policies, which can be quite difficult to achieve, as "some of efforts to implement structural reform have been shrinking in the short run."
Lou made the comment after he underscored the equal important role of structural reforms and fiscal strategies at a news conference earlier on the same day.
Lou said step-by-step expansive fiscal policies are able to create an appropriate macro environment to better implement structural reform.
He added more efforts are in need to manage and resolve distortions, including creating better mechanisms to ensure equal market competition and a free, open labor market.
World Bank President Jim Yong Kim expressed similar concerns and said that fiscal transparency need to be enhancedto ensure policies can be equally benefit all people.
The G20 ministers pledged to use all policy tools that promote inclusive economic growth that can be shared broadly among people,according to the communique released on Sunday.