Niigata, Japan, May 11 (AFP/APP): Support for war-torn Ukraine will top the agenda at G7 finance talks on Thursday, but ministers and central bankers will also weigh concerns ranging from banking uncertainty to US debt default fears.
The three-day meeting of the Group of Seven developed nations comes with the global economy still unsteady after years of pandemic woes compounded by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
So the talks in the coastal city of Niigata in central Japan are a chance to set out a vision for financial stability before G7 leaders get together next weekend in Hiroshima.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen arrives under the cloud of an impasse over Washington’s debt limit, which President Joe Biden has said could even force him to cancel his trip to Hiroshima.
In Niigata, though, she will put the focus on addressing “shared challenges” including those related to Ukraine, according to the Treasury Department.
“This year, a central piece of our strategy is to take further actions to disrupt Russia’s attempts to evade our sanctions,” Yellen is expected to say in a speech on Thursday afternoon.
When the G7 finance ministers met in April in Washington, they hailed IMF approval of $15.6 billion in financing for Kyiv, recommitted to sanctions on Moscow and pledged “further actions as needed”.
There has been no official indication that new measures will be agreed during this week’s talks, but the door is open, said John Kirton, director of the G7 Research Group at the University of Toronto.
Fresh action could centre on “strengthening sanctions evasion by third countries, starting with China”, he told AFP ahead of the Niigata talks, which Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko will join virtually.
EU officials are already discussing halting exports of sensitive technologies to eight Chinese companies over suspicions they are selling them to Russia.
The G7 could also try to stop tankers covertly selling Russian oil in violation of the group’s oil price cap, or expand export bans, Kirton said.
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