Janet Yellen to visit India ahead of G20
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will travel to India ahead of the Group of 20 Summit in Indonesia next week to bolster US-India economic ties and to try to overcome G20 divisions prompted by Russia's war in Ukraine, the treasury said on Friday (4).
Yellen will visit New Delhi on November 11 to participate in a meeting of the US-India Economic and Financial Partnership and deliver remarks on the two democracies' deepening relationship at the Microsoft India Development Center, where she also will meet with technology sector leaders, according to a treasury statement.
Yellen will also meet with Indian finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman to discuss India's assumption of the
G20 presidency, as the group of major economies continues to struggle with deep divisions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine as this year's leaders' summit in Indonesia approaches.
Russia, a G20 member, has blocked the group from issuing communiques with language condemning the conflict.
‘For India, we clearly also will expect if the war is continuing, that there will likely be negative continuing economic fallout that the G20 will need to address and clearly highlight Russia's culpability for the war and the fallout,' a Treasury official told reporters.
Treasury officials said they were continuing to discuss with G7 allies and Australia how to set a price cap on Russian oil exports aimed at limiting Moscow's revenues while keeping Russian crude on the market, but declined to offer a timeline for announcing it.
On Thursday (4), sources in the coalition told Reuters that the cap will be set at a fixed price that will be reviewed regularly rather than a discount to an index.
While India has become a major buyer of Russian crude, the United States is not trying to pressure India to reduce such purchases, and the price cap was not a major focus of Yellen's trip, a second treasury official siad.
‘So we are not trying to stop countries from purchasing (Russian) oil,‘ the official added. ‘In fact, we see the biggest beneficiaries of the price cap being large emerging market countries like India, so we wouldn't be pressuring them away from it.'