By all assessments Australia staged a brilliantly run event with many of the world's smartest finance brains in attendance.

In the words of International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde, Australia's presidency of the G20 is "action-orientated."

One of the agreed aims was to increase the gross domestic product of each of the G20 countries by an additional 2 per cent during the next five years.

Some commentators and countries thought the "aims" were weaker than expected and that the five-year time frame was too long.

A 2 per cent GDP lift would boost the world economy by $2 trillion and that would benefit all economies.

That commits Australia to an economic growth rate of 3 per cent and puts a lot of pressure on Treasurer Joe Hockey ahead of his first budget in May.

Mr Hockey said speeding up the economy was the only way to achieve that growth and reduce unemployment.

There was general agreement that all of the G20 economies are inextricably linked and that central bank decisions in one country can affect many other economies.

The US decision to print money and stimulate its economy, for example, has lead to a high Australian dollar and higher production costs in this country.

The biggest breakthrough appeared to be in combating tax avoidance, with all countries agreeing to an automatic exchange of tax information under a common reporting standard.

Mr Hockey told the conference that he struggled to comprehend why the owner of a small business in Sydney was paying tax and competing against, "a massive multi-national that doesn't have to pay tax."

The summit promised to have a taxation plan ready for implementation by September.