The meeting of the finance ministers for the group of 20 (G20) countries which had convened in the Indian city of Bengaluru ended on Saturday (February 25) without a joint statement. This comes as most G20 member nations condemned the ongoing conflict in Ukraine but China and Russia declined to sign the joint statement. This led India, which was hosting the two-day event to release a “chair’s summary and outcome document” which is said to simply summarise the talks and noted disagreements.
Disagreements at the G20 meeting
The document in question wrote, “most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed that it is causing immense human suffering and exacerbating existing fragilities in the global economy.” This was said in the context of supply chain disruptions, risks to financial stability, as well as continuing energy and food insecurity. It also added that there were “different assessments of the situation and sanctions” referring to the ongoing conflict.
This comes as western countries have imposed thousands of sanctions against Russia and some of its citizens since it began what it has described as its “special military operation” in Ukraine, in a bid to starve the country of its revenues. A footnote said that the two paragraphs in the summary about the ongoing conflict “were agreed to by all member countries except Russia and China”.
Notably, the paragraphs are said to be adopted from the G20 Bali Leaders’ declaration in November but even at the time China wanted to change the language of the statement and remove the word “war”, reported AFP citing officials who requested anonymity.
Indian finance minister addresses a press conference after the meetings
“Although there was not what we would call a communique, but only an outcome statement, we still think we’ve made some progress in having all the ministers on board”, said the Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her concluding remarks, earlier today.
She also addressed that, “Two countries, Russia and China had reservations. So with a footnote certainly a communique can’t go out and therefore it had to be a chair summary and an outcome document.”
Since the beginning of the conflict, New Delhi has not condemned Moscow and was seen as reluctant to raise the issue at the meeting but the western countries asserted that they could not support any outcome that did not include a condemnation.
Furthermore, Indian Economic Affairs Secretary Ajay Seth refuted the aforementioned claims about Moscow and Beijing wanting to change the language part of the summary and said, “Both Russia and China took the position that Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors’ mandate is to deal with economic and financial issues and their mandate is not on geo-political issues. So they did not comment on the language part,” as per PTI. He added, “There was no request or demand to remove the word ‘war’, they just said to remove the paragraph itself because it was not the right place for having those paragraphs.”
Whereas the other 18 countries felt that the ongoing war has got implications for the global economy, which is why this is the right place to have those paragraphs, said the economic affairs minister. The two-day meeting discussed a range of issues which also included debt relief to poorer countries, digital currencies and payments, reforms of lending institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) as well as climate change and financial inclusion.
According to the Indian finance minister’s summary, the global outlook has somewhat improved since they last met in October 2022 but global growth remains slow and downside risks to the outlook persist. This was in reference to elevated inflation, a resurgence of the pandemic and tighter financing conditions, which could worsen debt vulnerabilities in emerging economies.
“We, therefore, reiterate the need for well-calibrated monetary, fiscal, financial, and structural policies to promote growth and maintain macroeconomic as well as financial stability. We will continue to enhance macro policy cooperation and support the progress towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” said Sitharaman.
India’s call for regulating crypto receives support
There was also a discussion surrounding the adequacy of IMF quotas which the document released after the meeting said that the leaders would continue to work on IMF governance reform under the 16th General Review of Quotas which would also include a new quota formula as a guide which would be completed by December 15, 2023.
Notably, India’s push for regulation of private crypto assets also received support at the meeting. IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva backing New Delhi’s stance on private cryptocurrencies and other digital assets said, “We have to differentiate between central bank digital currencies that are backed by the state and stable coins, and crypto assets that are privately issued.”
She added, “Second, there has to be a very strong push for regulation. And third, if regulation fails, if you’re slow to do it, then we should not take off the table or banning those assets, because they may create financial stability risk”. This comes after Indian officials including the finance ministry and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has called for strong global regulations for private crypto assets and in some cases, they should be banned.
(With inputs from agencies)
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