An unlikely collection of rich and poor nations on Saturday vowed to starve financing for groups they consider to be terrorists, but failed to agree on how their vastly different economies could do so.
Disagreements also emerged among the group of 20 -- from the super-rich US to poverty-racked India -- over the pace of economic liberalization, cutting trade barriers and coping with global financial crises.
PHOTO: AP
The G20 said the world faced tough economic challenges -- with a slower-than-expected global recovery -- but believed member economies were sound and could achieve higher growth.
The G20 comprises Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the US, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the EU.
Indian Finance Minister Jaswant Singh said efforts to cut financing for groups that have been labelled terrorists by some G20 nations have been frustrated because of economic disparities between members and that some of the groups have been funnelling money using tradeable goods.
"There have been examples of terrorists moving away from currency to goods, easily tradeable goods -- and the two examples that come to mind are gold and diamonds," Singh told a news conference at the end of the meeting.
In its final communique, the G20 said globalization had failed to deliver on cutting poverty and agreed that slashing obstacles to global capital flows must take into account each country's stage of economic development.
Developing nations wanted more focus on preventing international financial crises, while rich countries sought to minimise their impact, sources said.
"The process of globalization ... has not yet delivered its potential in reducing poverty in some of the world's poorest countries," the four-page Delhi Communique said.
India also resisted US pressure to legalize the informal financial networks, known as "hawala," which leave no paper trail. Washington fears outlawing hawala drives those transactions underground where they cannot be monitored.
"I think they generally appreciated that India's stand on hawala is correct ...," Indian central bank chief Bimal Jalan told a news conference.
"It continues to be illegal and will continue to be illegal while we encourage more customers [into] friendly channels which are institutionalized, subject to inspection, regulation and which can make the transfer less costly."
Although some ministers from key members of the G7 richest nations were absent, US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill did attend as part of a regional swing through Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
But he angered top Indian officials by calling India one of the most restrictive economies in the world and saying widespread corruption and bribery scared off honest investors.
"How come he comes and lectures us on corruption when there is so much corporate corruption in the United States?" a senior Indian official said.
Representing three quarters of the world's people and the global economy, the G20 was established in 1999 in the wake of the emerging markets financial crises of the late 1990s.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Wednesday said that a new chip manufacturing technology called “A16” is to enter production in the second half of 2026, setting up a showdown with longtime rival Intel over who can make the fastest chips. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract manufacturer of advanced computing chips and a key supplier to Nvidia and Apple, announced the news at a conference in Santa Clara, California, where TSMC executives said that makers of artificial intelligence (AI) chips will likely be the first adopters of the technology rather than a smartphone maker. Analysts said that the technologies announced on
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
CALL FOR DIALOGUE: The president-elect urged Beijing to engage with Taiwan’s ‘democratically elected and legitimate government’ to promote peace President-elect William Lai (賴清德) yesterday named the new heads of security and cross-strait affairs to take office after his inauguration on May 20, including National Security Council (NSC) Secretary-General Wellington Koo (顧立雄) to be the new defense minister and former Taichung mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) as minister of foreign affairs. While Koo is to head the Ministry of National Defense and presidential aide Lin is to take over as minister of foreign affairs, Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) would be retained as the nation’s intelligence chief, continuing to serve as director-general of the National Security Bureau, Lai told a news conference in Taipei. Koo,
MANAGING DIFFERENCES: In a meeting days after the US president signed a massive foreign aid bill, Antony Blinken raised concerns with the Chinese president about Taiwan US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and senior Chinese officials, stressing the importance of “responsibly managing” the differences between the US and China as the two sides butt heads over a number of contentious bilateral, regional and global issues, including Taiwan and the South China Sea. Talks between the two sides have increased over the past few months, even as differences have grown. Blinken said he raised concerns with Xi about Taiwan and the South China Sea, along with China’s support for Russia and its invasion of Ukraine, as well as other issues