(This story contains no dateline to protect the sources of the information)
Sept 30 (Reuters) - Finance ministers and central bank governors of the Group of Seven (G7) nations may not issue a communique at the end of their meeting in Istanbul this weekend, two G7 sources said on Wednesday.
A decision not to release a communique could be seen as a sign of the G7's declining importance in policymaking. Traditionally, the group of the world's richest countries has issued a statement on the global economy after its meetings, often moving financial markets.
But the Group of 20 (G20) nations has supplanted the G7 during the financial crisis as the main forum for managing the global economy, as a summit of G20 leaders in Pittsburgh last week underlined. The G20 includes big developing economies such as China and India.
"It is not even clear at the moment if we will have a communique at the end of the G7 at all," said one G7 source, speaking on condition of anonymity. "If we have one, it will be only a short one".
A second G7 source said there was a chance that no communique would be issued in Istanbul.
The first G7 source said: "There is not much to be said additionally after Pittsburgh."
In its summit communique last week, the G20 pledged to keep emergency economic policies in place until sustainable recovery was assured, launch a framework for acting together to rebalance the global economy, and establish tougher rules governing banks by 2012.
Finance officials from the G7, which comprises Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, will meet this Saturday on the sidelines of World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) conferences in Istanbul.
Japanese Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii said on Wednesday that he believed the G7 still had an important role to play.
"The role of the G7 meeting is important even if there is the G20 gathering, especially because G7 countries have a common type of financial markets," he said.
But while markets used to look to G7 meetings for guidance on the direction of exchange rates, they now feel any major realignment of currencies would need to involve China's yuan, making it a topic for the G20.
The first G7 source said the group would have to discuss how to continue its meetings in future, now that the G20 would focus on global discussion of financial and economic issues.
The source suggested that instead of holding several meetings every year as previously, the G7 might only need to meet twice a year, on the sidelines of IMF conferences. (Editing by Stephen Nisbet)