G8

G8 or G-8, economic and political forum for the world's seven most industrialized nations: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, and the United States; plus Russia. The Group arose informally from the Conference on International Economic Cooperation (CIEC)—a series of meetings of finance ministers arranged by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing of France and Helmut Schmidt of the then Federal Republic of Germany and held between December 1975 and June 1977. On becoming heads of government, the two politicians invited other heads of government to join them in these meetings. The first full summit of the original seven member states took place in Puerto Rico in 1976.

The Group was formerly known as the Group of Seven, but with the end of the Cold War, Russia was invited to join the G-7 summits from 1994, and from 1997 became a full member in all but certain economic matters.

In 1999, a new structure—a forum of finance ministers and central bank governors—was established under the auspices of G-8, and called Group of Twenty (G-20). The new grouping consists of representatives of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, and Turkey, as well as delegates of the existing eight members. Its main objective is to encourage, in an informal manner, the economic cooperation between nations and to stimulate a stable and sustainable growth of the world’s significant economies.

The Group of Eight meets once a year to exchange information and ideas, particularly in economics, discuss matters of international concern, and consider possible strategies. The summits are organized by civil servants as the G-8 has no headquarters or formal structure. Recent summits took place in Denver, Colorado (1997), Birmingham, England (1998), Cologne, Germany (1999), Okinawa, Japan (2000), Genoa, Italy (2001), Kananaskis, Canada (2002), Evian, France (2003), Sea Island, Georgia, United States (2004), and Gleneagles, Scotland (2005).