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G20 finance chiefs to warn of trade risks, differ on how 'pressing'

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Global trade tensions threaten an expected pick-up in economic growth this year and in 2020, a draft communique by the world
Global trade tensions threaten an expected pick-up in economic growth this year and in 2020, a draft communique by the world’s financial leaders showed on Saturday, but the policymakers were divided on whether the need to resolve them was “pressing”.
Finance ministers and central bank governors of the world’s 20 biggest economies, the G20, are meeting in the southern Japanese city of Fukuoka to discuss the global economy amid rising trade tensions between China and the United States.
“Global growth appears to be stabilizing and is generally projected to pick up moderately later this year and into 2020,” the draft G20 communique, seen by Reuters, said.
“However… risks remain tilted to the downside. These include, in particular, intensified trade and geo-political tensions,” said the draft communique, which may yet change before it is released on Sunday.
The draft statement, to which all the G20 financial leaders have to agree, contains a sentence in square brackets — which means it was not yet agreed — that trade and investment were important engines of growth.
“We reaffirm our leaders’ conclusions on trade from the Buenos Aires Summit and recognize the pressing need to resolve trade tensions,” the sentence still under discussion said.
If the sentence is dropped from the final statement, it would mean rowing back on an agreement reached by G20 leaders last year in Argentina that while the existing international trade system — the World Trade Orgnisation — needs improvement, it helps world growth and should be fixed.

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