G20 Bali summit to boost confidence in global economic recovery

BALI - The 17th Group of 20 (G20) Summit, scheduled to take place here from Tuesday to Wednesday, is expected to build global consensus and bolster confidence in world economic recovery. Experts and business leaders world-wide pin their hope on major economies to strengthen coordination on macroeconomic policies and promote multilateral ism, openness, inclusiveness and winwin cooperation.

They voiced confidence in China’s active role in the G20 and in its contribution of wisdom to building an open, inclusive and balanced world economy that benefits all.

On the theme of “Recover Together, Recover Stronger,” the G20 Summit will focus on three priority issues, namely, global health architecture, sustainable energy transition and digital transformation. To strengthen world health systems, the summit is expected to help improve global Covid-19 response and facilitate the transformation of global health infrastructure, and contribute to making health systems more resilient, inclusive, equitable and crisis-responsive.

And forums to be held on the side-lines of the summit will gather experts, officials and business leaders world-wide to discuss inclusive digital transformation, energy accessibility, smart and clean energy technologies, and energy financing.

As a new driving force for global economic growth, the digital economy has become critical, said Bambang Suryono, chairman of the Indonesian think tank Asia Innovation Study Center.

In the view of Peter Drysdale, head of the East Asian Bureau of Economic Research and East Asia Forum at the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University, climate change is an issue of common concern and an issue where there can be progress made among major parties.

“It’s important that there would be one significant progress on key issues, like cooperation on the climate change issue,” he said.

“For global challenges, we need to find a common solution, and the G20 is the platform where these collective decisions and collective leadership are emphasized upon,” said B. R. Deepak, chairperson of the Center of Chinese and Southeast Asian Studies at the New Delhibased Jawaharlal Nehru University. The global economy is susceptible to multiple impacts, one of which is exerted by soaring inflation in a number of countries, both rich and poor. The acute spillover effects of aggressive interest rate hikes by some developed economies have destabilized the global financial market and put emerging markets and developing countries under enormous pressure. In October, the International Monetary Fund adjusted the projected global economic growth for 2023 to 2.7%, down by 0.2 percentage point from its previous forecast in July.

“Today we need international cooperation more than ever. I think what has to be taken to this G20 is a positive approach by leaders that are prepared to engage on these issues in a constructive way,” Drysdale said.

Indonesian Minister for Foreign Affairs Retno Marsudi said during this year’s general debate of the UN General Assembly that the whole world is pinning their hope on the G20 as a catalyst for global economic recovery, especially for the developing countries. “We cannot let global recovery fall at the mercy of geopolitics.”

As analysts have pointed out, developing countries in particular need more support.

The Covid-19 pandemic has taken a heavy toll on the world economy, and developing economies have suffered greater losses than the developed ones, Suryono said, adding that the growth gap between developing and developed economies is widening.

In 2023, India will assume the G20 presidency, followed by Brazil in 2024. As the rotating presidency takes the lead in designing the agenda of the respective year’s leaders’ summit, the arrangement means that emerging countries’ concerns, such as poverty reduction, infrastructure development and digital upgrading, might take priority, said Wang Wen, executive dean of Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at the Renmin University of China.

As the world’s second largest economy and the largest developing country, China supports the G20 in playing a leading role in addressing global challenges and improving global economic governance and calls for an increased representation and a strengthened voice of developing countries in international affairs.

“China has done tremendous as far as building capacities inside their own country and also helping the developing world to overcome the lack of capacities and building desired infrastructures to meet the challenges of the pandemic,” Deepak said.