G7 summit should focus on weak global economy, Russia, North Korea - Japan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Japan said on Thursday a summit of Group of Seven (G7) nations it will host in May should send a clear signal that it is prepared to take steps to support the weak global economy.

Yasuhisa Kawamura, who is Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's spokesman, said weakness in Group of 20 major and emerging economies, especially in China, was expected to remain in 2016 through 2017.

Given that weakness, the G7 meeting should send a "clear message to the world so that those countries will make a contribution to the sustainable growth of the world economy," he said, speaking on the sidelines of the nuclear security summit in Washington.

He said the G7 summit should also take up "in a strategic way" issues such as global terrorism, Russia, Ukraine's conflict and the threat posed by North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

The group, which includes the United States, Italy, Germany, Japan, Britain, France, Canada and France cut Russia from the G8 in 2014 after Moscow annexed Crimea.

The International Monetary Fund forecast in January that global economic activity was uneven and likely to pick up to 3.4 percent this year and 3.6 percent in 2017, from 3.1 percent in 2015. Both forecasts for this year and next were revised downward by 0.2 percentage point.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Alan Crosby)