Challenges remain

Like at most multilateral meetings, not everyone came away entirely happy.

Firstly, no one is certain whether the world economy will recover on a firm footing.

According to Barclays outlook, markets still underestimate the strength of recovery. The Dow Jones Average Index fell on Friday.

In the short term, the demand-driven recovery, to some extent, has appeared. But in the long run, the structural shift of the world economy is still uncertain.

Second, there are still differences over financial regulation reform.

The summit's statement tackled the contentious issue of bankers' pay schemes. US Treasury Secretary Geithner said G20 countries had reached a consensus on the "basic outline" of a proposal to limit bankers' compensation by the end of this year.

However, the statement did not mention direct caps on pay, as proposed by some European leaders. French officials said the summit had not reached a final accord on executive pay.

Still, the financial regulatory standards are various among different jurisdictions. Geithner said the G20 would involve setting separate standards in each of the countries and would be overseen by the Financial Stability Board, an international group of central bankers, finance ministers and regulators that has representation from all the G20 nations.

But, Morris Goldstein, a former IMF official who's affiliated with the Washington think tank Peterson Institute of International Economics, suggested that a bulked-up G20 organization could make it even more difficult to impose mandatory requirements that all member nations must follow.

And the G20 little addressed the widely watched protectionism issue, which had been widely considered as a more threatening factor to the global economic recovery.

"Obviously, it is lack of a detailed action plan," said Hong Pingfan. He worried that more cases of protectionism would probably arise anyway.

Despite the pros and cons, the meeting speaks for itself.

"The economy is global. We find ourselves in the same boat. So the system we create now will certainly be universal," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said during the meeting.

Of course, it is not easy to get 20 people with different experiences, ideas and visions around one table to reach consensus on extremely complex issues, Tim Adams, former under secretary of the Treasury Department told Xinhua in an interview.

"What really matters is that they do sit at one table," Adams said.

Actions speak louder than words. It is little doubt that the G20 Pittsburgh summit represented the beginning of a new era, yet there is a long way to go.

The world is expectant.

(Xinhua News Agency September 27, 2009)