Nineteen countries and the European Union form the Group of 20, including developing economies like Brazil, China, India and Russia. Economist Sebastian Mallaby at the Council on Foreign Relations says G-20 nations should work together on financial reforms.

SEBASTIAN MALLABY: "Financial institutions are cross-border, they are multi-national, they are global. So you ought to have global rules to try and deal with them. But that is not the way the Congress is dealing with them in the United States, and that is not the way I expect European regulators will go either.”

G-20 nations also face the issue of trade imbalances, like the one between the United States and China. As recently as last week China said it would not discuss the dispute over its currency at the Toronto summit. But last Saturday China announced it will slowly let the value of the yuan rise. This week, it reached its highest exchange rate in two years.

China's export prices may rise, but an American diplomat said the action "takes an irritant off the table in the U.S.-China relationship."

And that’s the VOA Special English Economics report, written by Mario Ritter and with reporting by Jim Randle. For news from the G-20 summit, go to voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.