LONDON: Group of Seven leaders, who control a little under half of the world's economy, on Friday sought to look beyond the COVID-19 pandemic towards rebuilding their battered economies with free trade and to countering China's "non-market oriented" policies.
U.S. President Joe Biden and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi debuted at the G7 virtual leaders' meeting which was chaired by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The leaders called for stronger defences against a future pandemic, including exploring a global health treaty, but the focus was on a green recovery - on the same day that the United States rejoined the Paris climate agreement.
"Jobs and growth is what we're going to need after this pandemic," Johnson told the opening of the meeting. An official communiques said the G7 would champion open economies, "data free flow with trust" and work on "a modernised, freer and fairer rules-based multilateral trading system".
There was no direct reference to Facebook which cut news feeds in Australia. Leaders supported the commitment of Japan to hold the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 this summer.
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