CRI听力:G20 Officials Agree to Spur Economic Growth

Senior economic officials from the world's 20 largest economies say they have agreed to a slate of measures to spur economic growth as they concluded a meeting in Australia.

The G-20 finance ministers and central bankers say they are close to reaching their goal of boosting world GDP by more than 2 trillion US dollars over the next five years.

Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey says they have agreed to more than 900 policy initiatives to meet the goal they set in February during a gathering in Sydney.

"As of today, we are 90 percent of the way to reaching our 2 percent goal for additional global growth. We have now agreed to progress a multi-year global infrastructure initiative. This initiative consists of an integrated set of actions to increase quality infrastructure investment right across the G20 and beyond."

Meanwhile, IMF chief Christine Lagarde says the G-20 would need to concentrate on labour market measures and infrastructure in order to reach its 2 percent growth goal by 2018.

In July, the IMF downgraded its economic forecast for the world economy to 3.4 percent this year, due to weaker growth in the US, Russia and developing economies.

The two-day meeting in Cairns is a prelude to the G-20 Leaders' summit In Brisbane in mid-November.