Mint stamps chronicle President and First Lady Obama's trip to the 2009 G20 Summit and meeting with Queen Elizabeth of England.
On April 2, 2009, world leaders, finance ministers, and central bankers from some of the world’s most powerful countries met at London’s ExCeL Centre to discuss the state of the international economy. The meeting, known as the G-... more
Mint stamps chronicle President and First Lady Obama's trip to the 2009 G20 Summit and meeting with Queen Elizabeth of England.
On April 2, 2009, world leaders, finance ministers, and central bankers from some of the world’s most powerful countries met at London’s ExCeL Centre to discuss the state of the international economy. The meeting, known as the G-20 Leaders’ Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy, was the second of its kind. The main focus of the meeting was to remedy the worldwide financial troubles that resulted from one of the world’s worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
“To confront a crisis that knows no borders, we have a responsibility to coordinate our actions and to focus on common ground, not our occasional differences,” President Obama remarked before the meeting. The participating nations make up 85 percent of the global economy and met to create a set of common measures, which included strengthening financial regulations, promoting economic growth, supporting emerging markets, rejecting protectionism, and aiding the world’s most impoverished communities.
The day before the summit, leaders from each country arrived in London for a special reception. The photograph on one of your new Gambia stamps was taken at that reception and marks the importance of this rare gathering.
The result of the summit was the creation of a $1.1 trillion package of measures to provide economic growth, new jobs, and inspire confidence and trust in the world financial system. Of the total $1.1 billion, $500 billion would go to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help struggling economies, $250 billion would be used to boost world trade, another $250 billion would go towards a new IMF overdraft facility, and $100 billion would be used to assist international development banks for lending to poor countries. Additionally, the G-20 leaders planned to create a financial stability forum for increased global cooperation and an early-warning system for future financial crises.
President Obama was positive about the meeting, stating, “We can make real and unprecedented progress. We have an obligation to keep working at it until the burden on ordinary people is lifted, until we’ve achieved the kind of steady growth that creates jobs and advances prosperity for people everywhere.”
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