Finance ministers and central bank chiefs from the Group of Seven (G-7) industrialized nations gathered in Germany's western city of Essen on Friday to focus on the development of capital markets in emerging market economies and other world economic issues.
  
The two-day meeting, presided over by German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck, will focus on fiscal policy, which includes consolidating macroeconomic stability and the role of hedge funds in the stability of international financial markets.
  
Another important topic is the the Doha Round of trade talks, which began in 2001 and has been in an impasse due to disputes on farm subsidies.
  
Chinese Finance Minister Jin Renqing attended the meeting as a guest. Russia, despite its membership in the Group of Eight, remains to be a guest at the meeting because G-7 members believe Russia's economic and financial system does not fit in theirs.
  
The ministers from G-7, which groups Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, met with their counterparts from five developing nations --Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa.
  
The finance chiefs discussed setting up bond markets in the developing economies, using their domestic currencies to try to avoid a financial crisis.
 
They also talked about the promotion of growth and the fight against poverty by effecting improvements in the public finance sector of developing countries, and a fiscal policy for the promotion of energy efficiency and of an energy strategy increasingly reliant on renewable energies.
  
Steinbrueck, whose country holds the G-8 presidency, said earlier in a television interview on Friday that there should be a registration of all the highly speculative funds that operate with foreign capital.
  
He urged hedge fund managers to show greater awareness of the political consequences of their dealings.
  
The meeting in Essen is one of a series of meetings prior to the G-8 summit in the German Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm in June.