India’s G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant said New Delhi would strive to bring everyone together on crucial issues faced by the world economy, including global debt.
“Work is on track. We have an ambitious presidency. Our focus is inclusive and resilient growth,” Kant said, adding that the substantive phase had begun for negotiations on the variables.
The second G20 Sherpa meeting began on Thursday with side events on digital public infrastructure and green development.
Kant said the Sherpa meeting will take stock of the progress made on various issues outlined by the country as the key agenda items for its presidency. Sixteen Sherpas are attending the meeting, including from Russia.
Kant said the spotlight must turn to key economic issues that were confronting the world economy after the Covid-19 pandemic with a large number of countries battling recession and inflation.
The earlier G20 meetings, including the finance ministers and central bank governors meeting in Bengaluru, and the foreign ministers meeting in New Delhi, were overshadowed by sharp differences between the G-7 countries and Russia and China over two paragraphs in the declarations.
At both meetings, only the chair summary and an outcome document were presented.
Russia and China have objected to two paragraphs condemning the war that had been included in the Bali G20 summit declaration in November last year.
New Delhi will draw from PM Narendra Modi’s statement that this was not a time of war, and that discussions and deliberations were the way forward to push its presidency’s agenda on key developmental economic issues forward.
“Over 200 million people were pushed back into poverty due to Covid-19,” Kant said, adding that these issues have to take centre stage. The deliberations of the Sherpa meetings form the basis of the Leaders’ Declaration while taking into consideration the outcome documents of various Working Group Meetings.
The outcome document, which is negotiated by the Sherpas on behalf of Leaders, will be adopted by consensus by the Leaders at the New Delhi Summit in September 2023. India’s key priorities during its presidency include taking forward concerns of developing countries and the need for giving political momentum for collective actions to take forward the international agenda, especially the development and climate goals.