Group of Eight finance ministers are expected to focus on rising energy prices and ways to address global current account imbalances when they meet next week in St. Petersburg, Russia, Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki said Friday.
Tanigaki said the ministers will probably discuss how surging crude oil prices, which are expected to stay at high levels, will affect global price trends and developing economies.
The financial chiefs from Japan, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the United States are likely to deepen discussion on ways to ensure greater transparency in oil data and to promote energy efficiency among major consumers as a way of curbing volatility in oil prices, he said.