Reactions of G20 leaders to the London Summit communiqué

Gordon Brown, Prime Minister, United Kingdom. Chair, London Summit

'This is the day that the world came together, to fight back against the global recession. Not with words but a plan for global recovery and for reform and with a clear timetable.'

Barack Obama, President, United States 

'This will be a turning point in our pursuit of global economic recovery. By any measure the London Summit is historic. It is historic because of the size and scope of the challenge that we face and because of the timeliness of our response. We owe it to our citizens to act now. Today the world leaders have responded with unprecedented effort.'

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, President, Brazil

'It was good, not only for Brazil or any single country, but for the hopes and the future of humanity.'

Hu Jintao, President, China

'We have the enabling conditions to tackle the financial crisis. As long as we strengthen confidence and work together, we will tide over the difficulties and achieve our shared goals.'

Nicolas Sarkozy, President, France

'(The results of the summit) are beyond what we could have imagined ... We are all happy with the results.'

 
Angela Merkel, Chancellor, Germany

'[It is] a very, very good, almost historic compromise… We have agreed to set up a clear financial market architecture… We have taken an important step toward creating order in an area in the world where there was previously no order.'

Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister, Australia

'Today's agreement begins to crackdown on the cowboys in financial markets that have brought global markets undone with real impact on jobs everywhere.'

 
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Prime Minister, Spain

'We have set in motion the greatest concerted plan of fiscal expansion in history. It is unprecedented. It reaches $5 trillion.....This amount will contribute in a decisive way to facilitate a recovery of the world economy and to preserve millions of jobs.'

Jan Peter Balkenende, Prime Minister, The Netherlands

'One thing is clear: the financial and economic world of tomorrow may not resemble those of yesterday. We see day in, day out short term greed. We have an obligation to the people who now pay the price and our children to do it differently.'

 Silvio Berlusconi, Prime Minister, Italy

'On the Doha trade round we decided we will look more closely at the issue and fix a meeting at Maddalena to make a final decision.’

Stephen Harper, Prime Minister, Canada

'The worst aspects of instability, I do believe, are behind us. Stability is different from recovery. We're seeing a significant degree of stability.'

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, President, Argentina

'Countries that used to defend deregulation at any cost are recognizing that there needs to be a larger state presence so this crisis never happens again.'

Dmitry Medvedev, President, Russia

‘Twenty or 25 years ago it would be impossible to imagine a situation when so different nations, with so different economies, various mentalities and historical traditions could sit down at the same table and be able to agree on how to act in such a complicated situation, and to do it fairly fast!"

Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister, India

'The G20 Leaders Summit has shown a way forward. Given the goodwill and the meeting of minds among leaders that was possible in London over the last two days, the world has a basis to begin solving the crisis. The international community can and must work together to do so.'

 Taro Aso, Prime Minister, Japan

'(Another G20 summit) would be the easiest for countries to gather during the UN General Assembly in New York. The United States and others have proposed New York and we think this is a good idea.'

Abhisit Vejjajiva, Thai Prime Minister - representing ASEAN

'The various reforms in terms of the global financial institutions and the new facilities again respond better to the needs of emerging and developing economies. We are not losing sight of medium and longer term goals in terms of development.'

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, IMF Managing Director

 'The global crisis is hitting emerging market and poor countries hard. The G20 leaders have today sent a powerful signal that the international community is committed to support these countries, including by ensuring that the IMF has the tools to act.'

 José Manuel Barroso, European Commission President

'It is an historic moment, a defining moment for our global response to the crisis...We took the right decisions.'

Robert B. Zoellick, President, World Bank Group

'We welcome the tremendous degree of cooperation between public and private sector institutions that allows us to come together to launch the Global Trade Liquidity Program for developing countries. I welcome G20 support for this timely and targeted solution that will provide trade finance to support businesses across developing markets.'

Pascal Lamy, Director General, World Trade Organisation

'The important thing is that there is, as in other areas of the G20 work yesterday, convergence, unanimity on the view that in order to respond to this crisis, trade must remain open.'