Financial chiefs of the Group of 20 major economies concluded their meeting in India on Saturday without a joint statement, with Russia and China refusing to endorse references to the war in Ukraine.
Most of the group's finance ministers and central bankers, who could not issue a joint communique in their last three meetings, "strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed that it is causing immense human suffering and exacerbating existing fragilities in the global economy," the chair's statement said.
They remained divided over the Ukrainian crisis during the meeting, which started in the southern Indian city on the one-year anniversary of Russia's invasion, as "there were other views and different assessments of the situation and sanctions" imposed on Moscow, according to the chair's summary and outcome document.
All the participants, bar those from Russia and China, agreed that the Ukrainian crisis is constraining growth, increasing inflation, disrupting supply chains, heightening energy and food insecurity, and elevating financial stability risks, it said.
The members acknowledged a modest improvement in the global economic outlook since their last meeting in October, but "global growth remains slow, and downside risks to the outlook persist, including elevated inflation, a resurgence of the pandemic and tighter financing conditions," the statement said.
The G-20 groups Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
