‘India will play a leading role in redefining & reshaping the world’

Kumarakom (Kerala): India will play a lead role during its G-20 presidency in redefining and reshaping the world which is facing multiple challenges, Indian Sherpa Amitabh Kant said here on Sunday.

Talking about the trend in the past 10 years, Kant said that the developed world would slow down and emerging markets would grow. Resources should therefore flow from the former to the latter so that emerging markets improve, he said.

The G-20 members represent around 85 per cent of global GDP, over 75 per cent of global trade, and about two-thirds of the world’s population.

Spelling out the challenges being faced by the world, Kant said this included slow down affecting growth, 75 countries getting into global debt, millions of people becoming jobless and several millions falling below the poverty line.

“All these require very accelerated action by G-20, and when G-20 acts, the multilateral institutions act. Therefore, India will use this opportunity to redefine and reshape the world in many ways. And that is what we will try and do through the G-20 presidency”, Kant said.

A day after the second meeting of the G-20 Sherpas (personal representatives of heads of governments at international summits) under India’s presidency concluded here in this lakeside village, Kant said by the time of the third meeting at Hampi in Karnataka: “we will draft out a leaders’ communique”.

Noting that the G-20 was a forum where major issues pertaining to economic growth, economic development, financial progress and developmental needs were addressed, Kant said: “All these areas of growth, resilient and inclusive growth, a sustainable development goal, climate action and also digital transformation and women-led development...we will work out a complete communique, we will finally find a way through the leaders’ communique.”

The Indian Sherpa said: “All countries want us to be very ambitious, they want us to be very inclusive, they want us to be very decisive and therefore we will be very ambitious in our leaders’ communique that we will prepare”.

Kant said multilateral financial reforms were required as a lot of money available in the private sectors and institutional investors were not coming to emerging markets. He said the World Bank should have new instruments to allow such money to flow into emerging markets “because in the future, all growth and all developments will happen in emerging markets.”

According to him, the developed world would slow down and emerging markets would grow.

He said that in the past 10 years, the share of emerging markets had grown a lot and that it would keep growing while the share of the developed world would come down.

“So you need resources to flow from the developed world to emerging markets so that the productivity of emerging markets will improve”, the Indian Sherpa said.

Asked about the issues discussed, including the developed world’s commitment for a green development fund, he said in the 2009 Copenhagen Climate conference, in the name of climate justice, they had agreed to give $100 billion a year to developing countries. “They have not lived up to it”, Kant said.

During the four-day gathering of over 120 delegates from G-20 members, 9 invitee countries, and various international and regional organisations, multilateral discussions on G-20’s economic and developmental priorities as well as on addressing contemporary global challenges were held.