G20 members have agreed on 99% of issues, says India

INTERNATIONAL DESK: India on Saturday said it has the backing of G20 members to push ahead with the issues flagged during its presidency and is hopeful of differences over the Ukraine-Russia conflict being resolved in time for the leaders’ summit in Delhi in September.

“We have had very constructive and positive discussions. We have already got 99%. The other 1% is not in India’s hands, someone else has created that. Everyone, emerging markets, developed countries, G7, all want to make India’s presidency a success. It’s a question of timing,” India’s sherpa Amitabh Kant said after the conclusion of the second meeting of interlocutors from the 20 largest economies.

While several countries have indicated their support to reform the World Bank and similar entities, address the issue of climate change and debt problems of some of the developing and poor nations, China and Russia have concerns over the way the US and European countries are approaching the Ukraine crisis. The gulf has resulted in the finance ministers and central bank governors and foreign ministers being unable to issue a joint communique and have instead issued a chair’s summary.

Kant said that several options are on the table to bring unanimity on how the issue could be resolved. Officials said the wording is likely to be decided in the run up to the leader’s summit as ministers are currently taking a cue from what the heads of their governments had agreed up on in Bali, which has formed the basis for the text on Ukraine war in the two chair’s summaries.

Kant and his team are drawing comfort from the willingness of all 20 member of the group to engage on all the issues, something the India sherpa said was not the case during Indonesia’s presidency last year.

At the meeting, there was a detailed discussion around the global economic situation and the possible impact of the problems in the US and other developing markets on the developing economies as central banks led by the US Fed have raised interest rates to combat inflation, resulting in a flight of capital from emerging markets.

Kant said presentations on the marcro-economic situation highlighted how the pandemic has strained the fiscal situation in several parts of the world, increased fossil fuel consumption and increased the cost of living as food, fertiliser and fuel prices have soared. “This will also require us to reshape the multilateral institutions,” he said. (TOI)