India takes pride in hosting the maiden meeting of the G20

The first meeting of the Finance Track of the Group of Twenty (G-20) under India’s presidency is scheduled to kick off in Bengaluru on Tuesday (13). This meeting, from December 13-15, will be hosted jointly by the Ministry of Finance and the Reserve Bank of India. The Sherpa Track meetings have already begun, with the first one in Udaipur earlier this month.

The G20 Finance Track offers a useful forum for the discussion of international economic issues and the coordination of policy and the meeting is slated to deliberate on several of the economic agenda items and prepare the pitch for the February meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors. 

The topics discussed will include reorienting international financial institutions to meet the shared global challenges of the 21st century, financing cities of tomorrow, managing global debt vulnerabilities, advancing financial inclusion and productivity gains, financing for climate action and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), a globally coordinated approach to unbacked crypto assets and advancing the international taxation agenda.

The upcoming meeting of G20 Finance and Central Bank Deputies will be co-chaired by Ajay Seth, Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, and Michael D Patra, Deputy Governor of Reserve Bank of India. Their counterparts from G20 member countries, along with several other nations and international organisations invited by India, will participate in the two-day meeting.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his address at the Bali G20 Summit said that the need today is that the benefits of development are universal and all-inclusive. Ministry of Finance has imbibed this idea in the G20 Finance Track agenda.

The Prime Minister has also given the vision that India will strive to ensure that the G20 acts as a global "prime mover" to envision new ideas and accelerate collective action over the next one year. 

India has assumed the G20 presidency at a time of multiple challenges, which include scarring from the COVID-19 pandemic, sharpened geopolitical tensions, rising food and energy security concerns, growing debt distress, inflationary pressures and monetary tightening, among others, it said, stressing that a key role of the G20 is to provide guidance in dealing with such challenges. 

On the sidelines of the meeting, a panel discussion will be held on strengthening multilateral development banks to address shared global challenges of the 21st century. A seminar on the Role of Central Banks in Green Financing will also be held.

During its term, India will hold over 200 meetings across 32 different workstreams in 50 cities, involving ministers, government officials, and civil society members, leading up to the final summit in New Delhi in September 2023. The timing of the summit is seen as crucial, coming ahead of the general elections in 2024.

The Group of Twenty (G20) is an intergovernmental forum comprising 19 countries (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the United States) and the European Union. The G20 members represent around 85 percent of the global GDP, over 75 percent of the global trade, and about two-thirds of the world population.

Meanwhile, the four-day gathering of the Sherpa track, which began Sunday, started its first formal meeting with dignitaries from 40 countries recently. The Sherpa track, which will set the agenda for the G20 leaders in September next year, will engage on topics from 13 working groups ranging from energy, trade, and investment, development, employment, tourism, agriculture, digital economy, health, education, culture, environment, and anti-corruption, along with points from the two new groups — Disaster, Risk and Resilience Group and Startup20 Engagement Group — brought to the forefront by India under its presidency.

The Finance Track of the powerful G-20 grouping is older than the Sherpa Track since G-20 was formed with the intention of governance of the global economy. There are five working groups in the Finance Track, dealing with issues such as infrastructure, climate and sustainable infrastructure financing, global taxation, debt levels and sustainability especially in low-income nations, multilateral institutions, cross-border financial crimes, and regulation of cryptocurrency and other digital assets.

On trade and investment, the discussions will focus on resilient global value chains, integrating small and medium industries and global trade and trade for growth and prosperity, Kant said. On development, data for development, accelerating progress on sustainable development goals, and lifestyle for the environment will be discussed. The employment working group will talk about addressing the global skills gap, sustainable financing for social security, gig and platform economy, and social security, while the tourism working group will discuss green tourism, digitisation for transforming tourism, and skills for tourism.

Furthermore, the group on agriculture will talk about enhancing food scrutiny and nutrition, sustainable agriculture with a climate-smart approach, and tech and digitization for agriculture. For the digital economy, India has focused on digital public infrastructure, quite a bit on our own experience of creating digital identities for everyone, and creating bank accounts for everyone, which has enabled India to lift vast segments of the population above the poverty line through direct benefit transfers and fast payment, public digital platforms and cybersecurity and cyber safety which, to our mind, will be very critical in the digital economy of tomorrow.

On the health side, India will talk about prevention, preparedness, and response for health emergencies, digital health for universal access and improved service delivery and strengthening cooperation for vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics. These are all the issues India brought out in our issue notes and on the education issue note, India brought out foundational literacy and numeracy, strengthening research and innovation, tech-enabled learning and the future, of work which is very critical.

The discussions on energy will focus on low-cost finance for energy transition, fuel for the future, that is, bio-energy cooperation amongst G20, the principles of green hydrogen, Kant said, adding that it is very important if you have to decarbonise the economy, and (for) universal access to clean energy.