This weekend, leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Russia joined President Obama at Camp David for the annual G8 Summit. The leaders met to address major global economic, political and security challenges, including energy, jobs and climate change.

In a statement at the conclusion of the Summit on Saturday, President Barack Obama said the surroundings at Camp David gave an opportunity to hold some intimate discussions and make some genuine progress.

President Obama said for the past three years, “Our nations have worked together with others first to rescue a global economy from freefall, then to wrestle it back to a path of recovery and growth.”

The President said all the leaders attending the summit agreed that growth and jobs must be top priority. “A stable, growing European economy is in everybody’s best interests — including America’s.”

Ways to promote growth and job creation were discussed at the summit, while still carrying out reforms necessary to stabilize and strengthen economies for the future.

The President pointed out that steps have been taken to put in place some of the strongest financial reforms since the Great Depression.

At the same time, we worked to get our own fiscal house in order in a responsible way.  And through it all, even as we worked to stabilize the financial sector and bring down our deficits and debt over the longer term, we stayed focused on growing the economy and creating jobs in the immediate term.

Of course, we still have a lot of work to do.  Too many of our people are still looking for jobs that pay the bills.  Our deficits are still too high.  But after shrinking by nearly 9 percent the quarter before I took office, America’s economy has now grown for almost three consecutive years.  After losing hundreds of thousands of jobs a month, our businesses have created more than 4 million jobs over the past 26 months.  Exports have surged and manufacturers are investing in America again.