A new brick in the financial architecture has been put in place with the disclosure of the members of the group of 20 globally important financial nations, known as the G20. The G20 replaces the G22 country-grouping which was hand-picked by the US as a forum to respond to the 1997-98 financial crisis. The G20 is an informal forum for discussing the global financial architecture. Members include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, UK, and USA; plus two seats for an EU representative and a representative of the IMF and the World Bank.
The inaugural meeting of the G20 was on December 16 in Berlin.
Lawrence Summers, US Treasury Secretary, proposed substantial IMF reforms, arguing that the IMF should only provide loans to countries in crisis and should cease long-term lending, which is better done by the World Bank.
