ISE-SHIMA, May 27 : The Group of Seven industrial powers pledged on Friday to seek strong global growth, while papering over differences on currencies and stimulus policies and expressing concern over North Korea, Russia and maritime disputes involving China.
G7 leaders wrapped up a summit in central Japan vowing to use "all policy tools" to boost demand and ease supply constraints.
"Global growth remains moderate and below potential, while risks of weak growth persist," they said in a declaration. "Global growth is our urgent priority."
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, talking up what he calls parallels to the global financial crisis that followed the 2008 Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, said the G7 "shares a strong sense of crisis" about the global outlook.
"The most worrisome risk is a contraction of the global economy," led by a slowdown in emerging economies, Abe told a news conference after chairing the two-day summit. "There is a risk of the global economy falling into crisis if appropriate policy responses are not made."
In the broad-ranging, 32-page declaration, the G7 committed to market-based exchange rates and to avoiding "competitive devaluation" of their currencies, while warning against wild exchange-rate moves.
This represents a compromise between the positions of Japan, which has threatened to intervene to block sharp yen rises, and the United States, which generally opposes market intervention.
The G7 vowed "a more forceful and balanced policy mix" to "achieve a strong, sustainable and balanced growth pattern", taking each country's circumstances into account, while continuing efforts to put public debt on a sustainable path.
Meanwhile,  the refugee crisis gripping Europe is a problem that the whole world must deal with, G7 leaders said on Friday, as it called for beefed-up efforts to tackle the root causes of mass migration.
Last year, some 1.3 million refugees, mostly from conflict-torn Syria and Iraq, asked for asylum in the European Union -- more than a third of them in Germany -- stretching resources and aggravating popular resentment in some countries.
The mass movement has provided fuel for Europe's far right parties and populist politicians like France's Marine Le Pen, who has called for a clampdown on immigration.     ?AFP, REUTERS