G7 tackles growth, debt balance

The Group of Seven top world economies wraps up talks today aimed at striking a balance between supporting fragile economic recovery and slashing government debts, as the United States pressures Europe to scale back deep austerity measures.
The two-day meeting in Britain comes amid renewed market focus on currency wars after the yen yesterday hit its lowest point against the dollar for more than four years.
The talks in Aylesbury, northwest of London, were attended by finance ministers and central bank governors from G7 states as well as top representatives from the European Union and International Monetary Fund.
The G7 -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States -- is building on last month's wider Group of 20 meeting, while looking ahead to next month's G8 summit in Northern Ireland.

Britain, this year's president of the G8 -- the G7 plus Russia -- is using the platform to also push for greater multilateral cooperation in tackling tax evasion.
The G7 meeting is followed today by a series of press conferences involving ministers.

"Our task is to nurture the recovery," British finance minister George Osborne said yesterday as he opened the gathering amid pressure on Britain and other indebted European nations to scale back deep cuts to state spending.
The IMF, while welcoming government efforts to reduce spending, has urged Britain to lessen the pace of its austerity programme to support the country's fragile economic recovery.

IMF head Christine Lagarde said on her arrival yesterday that she was "looking forward to... Good discussions on (economic) recovery".
And US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said the world's biggest economy feels "strongly there needs to be the right balance between austerity and growth".
"We've seen in the United States that scheduling the deficit reduction to come a little bit later has left us with a stronger economy," he told CNBC.
He added: "We're not arguing over whether or not we all have to get our fiscal house in order. We all need to get our fiscal houses in order.

"I think the question is when and how... Having European economies grow means they need to get the right balance.