Jersey welcomes latest statement from the G20

Tuesday, 29 September 2009 13:25

Jersey’s Chief Minister has welcomed the Leaders’ Statement issued following last week’s G20 Summit in Pittsburgh.

At the Summit, world leaders reviewed the progress made since the Washington and London Summits and agreed to maintain steps to support economic activity until recovery is assured. They also pledged to take additional steps to ensure strong, sustainable, and balanced growth, to build a stronger international financial system, to reduce development imbalances, and to modernise the architecture for international economic cooperation.

Senator Terry Le Sueur said: “We are fully behind any action that is taken to assure a sound and sustainable recovery from the global financial and economic crisis. The commitment of the Summit to support economic activity and lifelong skills development is very much in accord with the action we have taken through the fiscal stimulus.

“We welcome the action to be taken to enhance international standards of financial regulation and compliance. We are confident we will maintain our position among the world leaders in complying with these standards, and continue to be internationally recognised for doing so. We also welcome the pressure being brought to bear on non-cooperative jurisdictions. This further progress towards a global level playing field can only be of benefit to the island.

“After the last G20 Summit, the OECD highlighted Jersey as one of the jurisdictions that have substantially implemented the internationally agreed tax standard, alongside jurisdictions like the UK, USA, France and Germany.

Jersey has since been invited to take on the role of one of four Vice Chairs for a new Peer Review Group set up by the OECD at its recent Global Forum on Tax Transparency and Exchange of Information, he added. The Pittsburgh summit has focussed on the need for a similar peer review process for international standards of financial regulation and anti-money laundering. In this respect the recently announced excellent results of our IMF assessment are extremely timely.