G-20 finance chiefs to tackle global economic threats
Top financial leaders from the Group of 20 leading economies are gathering in the south Indian technology hub of Bengaluru this week to tackle myriad challenges to global growth and stability, including stubbornly high inflation and surging debt.
India is hosting the G-20 financial conclave for the first time in 20 years. Later in the year it will convene its first summit of G-20 economies. The meetings offer the world’s second most populous country a chance to showcase its ascent as an economic power and its status as a champion of developing nations.
This week’s gathering of finance ministers and central bank governors takes place just a year after Russia invaded Ukraine, setting off a cascade of shocks to the world economy, chief among
them decades-high inflation. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is expected to address the global economic impacts of the war while at the G-20 meetings.
India is among the countries treading lightly between the Western nations and Russia, eager to claim more global sway but wary of becoming embroiled in antagonisms as its economy
benefits from purchases of discounted Russian crude oil.
“India has a growing leadership role globally,” Information Minister Anurag Thakur, said Wednesday, reiterating Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s stance that “today’s era is not of war. Dialogues and discussions are the only way forward.”
As host of more than 200 G-20 meetings in 28 cities leading up to the summit in November, Modi is expected to use that role to burnish India’s stature as a leader in fighting climate change and to act as a bridge between the interests of industrialized nations and developing ones.
“We don’t have the resources that developed countries have but within minimum resources we have also achieved a lot in sectors such as space and renewable energies such as green hydrogen,” Thakur said.
It’s an urgent priority, given the growing importance of emerging economies to global growth: the International Monetary Fund estimates that India and China alone will contribute more than half of global economic growth this year, with other Asian countries contributing another quarter of that expansion with annual growth rates of 6% to 7%.