G-7 leaders debate global risk

Group of Seven leaders voiced concern about emerging economies at a summit in Japan on Thursday as their host, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, made a pointed comparison to the 2008 global financial crisis but not all his G-7 partners appeared to agree.
The G-7 leaders did agree on the need for flexible spending to spur world growth but the timing and amount depended on each country, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroshige Seko said, adding some countries saw no need for such spending.
Britain and Germany have been resisting calls for fiscal stimulus.
“G-7 leaders voiced the view that emerging economies are in a severe situation, although there were views that the current economic situation is not a crisis,” Seko said after the first day of a two-day G-7 summit in Ise-Shima, central Japan.
Abe presented data showing global commodities prices fell 55 percent from June 2014 to January 2016, the same margin as from July 2008 to February 2009, after the Lehman collapse.
Abe hopes, some political insiders say, to use a G-7 statement on the global economy as cover for a domestic fiscal package including the possible delay of a rise in the nation’s sales tax to 10 percent from 8 percent planned for next April.

Source: Arab News