Terror attacks a growing threat

Increasingly frequent terrorist attacks are becoming a growing threat to the global economy, finance chiefs from the world's leading economies said yesterday.

Terror has strike different parts of the world recently.

"We condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the recent terrorist attacks," G20 finance chiefs said in a communique after meeting in the Chinese city of Chengdu, adding that terrorism was one of the issues that "complicate" the economic environment.

France's finance minister Michel Sapin said the concept of terrorism as an economic risk itself was new, but its inclusion in economic analyses was now "normal".

"The world has already experienced terrorist attacks, the world experiences regional destabilisations," he told AFP. "But today the frequency of attacks creates a new situation of uncertainty, which is at least as damaging as regional destabilisations or a regional conflict.

"That can have economic consequences that are just as important," he said.

US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew told reporters the meeting "reaffirmed our solidarity and resolve to fight terrorism in all its forms and wherever it occurs, and strengthening our efforts to prevent financing of terrorism".

Sapin pointed out that funding for what he called "low-cost terrorism", carried out domestically using methods that cost attackers relatively little, must also be addressed.