Action not words needed to boost growth, Abbott tells G20

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott called for G20 economies to adopt more ambitious growth targets, urging leaders not to ‘waste each other's time’ with a talk-fest. Abbott told more than 380 international business leaders attending a 2-day B20 summit in Sydney that the world’s economies were still ‘in the shadow of the (financial) crisis’ and ‘action, not words’ was needed to boost growth. ‘The G20 will deliver a 3-page communique in plain language because we need to talk not at length about our good intentions, but precisely what we would do to put good intentions into practice,’ the Australian leader said. ‘I made a promise in Davos this year. I said that the G20 had to be so much more than a talk-fest. Otherwise the leaders of the world's largest and most representative economies could be accused of wasting each other's time.’ Abbott told media later that Australia was asking G20 nations to push harder on their growth plans, so they could meet their pledge during a February finance ministers' meeting to add 2.0 per cent to GDP over the next five years, according to AFP.