Japan to push for new G-7 model for financing global growth

Tokyo

WHEN finance ministers and central bank governors from the Group of Seven (G-7) nations meet in the Japanese city of Sendai this week, they are expected to consider new financing models that could help restore the position of advanced nations as a main driving force behind the global economy.

A slowdown in China and other key emerging economies (especially commodity-exporters Russia, Brazil and South Africa among the BRICS nations) has dimmed the image of the larger G-20 group and Japan sees this as a chance for the G-7 to reassert itself. The Sendai meeting will be an elite gathering, featuring among others key figures such as US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, their counterparts from Japan, the UK, Canada, Germany, France and Italy, as well as International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Christine Lagarde and European Central Bank (ECB) head Mario Draghi.