BEI­JING–Glob­al fi­nance of­fi­cials promised yes­ter­day to pro­tect the world econ­o­my from the shock­waves of Britain's Eu­ro­pean Union ref­er­en­dum and to boost slug­gish growth.

En­voys of the Group of 20 ma­jor economies al­so re­ject­ed trade pro­tec­tion­ism, an is­sue that has risen in promi­nence as US Re­pub­li­ca­tion pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Don­ald Trump stirs un­ease with talk about re­strict­ing ac­cess to Amer­i­can mar­kets.

The gath­er­ing of fi­nance min­is­ters and cen­tral bank gov­er­nors from the Unit­ed States, Chi­na, Britain, Ger­many and oth­er gov­ern­ments took place against a back­drop of a weak glob­al re­cov­ery that was rat­tled by Britain's vote to leave the EU and trade ten­sion over Chi­nese ex­ports of low-priced steel.

The British vote "in­creased glob­al eco­nom­ic un­cer­tain­ty," said a joint state­ment by the of­fi­cials, who were meet­ing in Cheng­du in west­ern Chi­na.

"G-20 mem­bers are ready to ac­tive­ly re­spond to the po­ten­tial eco­nom­ic and fi­nan­cial im­pact brought by the British ref­er­en­dum," said the state­ment. "In the fu­ture, we hope to see Britain as a close part­ner of the EU."

On Fri­day, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund, Chris­tine La­garde, called for quick ac­tion to end un­cer­tain­ty about the British-EU split. She said that tur­moil prompt­ed the IMF to cut its fore­cast of this year's glob­al growth by 0.1 per­cent­age point.

Yes­ter­day's state­ment promised to use "any and all pol­i­cy in­stru­ments" to achieve "strong, sus­tain­able, bal­anced and in­clu­sive growth ob­jec­tives." The gov­ern­ments promised to strength­en com­mu­ni­ca­tion and co­op­er­a­tion but an­nounced no joint ac­tion, as some fi­nan­cial traders had hoped.

"We are tak­ing ac­tion to boost con­fi­dence and pro­mote growth," said the state­ment.

US Trea­sury Sec­re­tary Ja­cob Lew said ahead of the meet­ing that it was not the right time for co­or­di­nat­ed ac­tion sim­i­lar to that in 2008-09 fol­low­ing the glob­al cri­sis be­cause economies face dif­fer­ent con­di­tions.

"Over­all, the gen­er­al sense was that the out­look re­mains un­cer­tain," Lew said in a state­ment yes­ter­day. "There is now broad con­sen­sus that what the glob­al econ­o­my needs is growth–not aus­ter­i­ty–and the dis­cus­sions here have fo­cused on how best to achieve that out­come."

The en­voys al­so pledged to avoid de­valu­ing cur­ren­cies to boost ex­ports.

"We will op­pose all forms of pro­tec­tion­ism," their state­ment said.

Trump, who was named the Re­pub­li­can Par­ty's nom­i­nee for pres­i­dent on Fri­day, set­ting up a race with pre­sump­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nee Hillary Clin­ton, has called for mea­sures to pro­tect Amer­i­can in­dus­try, though he has giv­en no de­tails.

Na­tion­al lead­ers of the G-20 economies are due to meet in Sep­tem­ber in Hangzhou, south­west of Shang­hai.

The G-20 state­ment al­so cit­ed the im­por­tance of re­duc­ing ex­cess pro­duc­tion ca­pac­i­ty in steel and oth­er in­dus­tries that has led to a glut of sup­ply and de­pressed prices. That is a source of ten­sion be­tween Chi­na and trad­ing part­ners that ac­cuse Bei­jing of ex­port­ing steel at im­prop­er­ly low prices, hurt­ing com­peti­tors and threat­en­ing a loss of jobs.

AP