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Debt Crisis Facing Developing Countries on G20 Finance Meet Agenda
Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen and President Joe Biden at the G-20 Rome Summit - 30 October 2021 (Office of U.S. Treasury Secretary)
July 17, 2023 10:30 AM
Anjana Pasricha
NEW DELHI —
Finance ministers of the Group of 20 countries and central bank heads met in the western Indian city of Gandhinagar Monday to discuss how to shore up a faltering global economy and help nations grappling with a debt crisis.
Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the group has the responsibility “to steer the global economy towards strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth."
India, which holds the presidency of the G20 this year, is hosting the meeting.
One of the top agenda items is facilitating a consensus on debt restructuring for developing countries facing economic distress, Sitharaman said.
The meeting is set to discuss a debt restructuring plan for Sri Lanka and Ghana, which defaulted on their debt last year.
Global concerns have grown as spiraling prices of food grains and energy insecurity in the wake the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine pushed some low and middle income countries into debt and slow global growth.
More than half of all low-income countries are near or in debt distress, double the number in 2015, said U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
“The world is looking to the G20 to make progress on key challenges like climate change and pandemics as part of our work to strengthen the global economy and to support developing countries,” Yellen said on the sidelines of the G20 meeting.
Before the G20 meeting got underway, Yellen and her Indian counterpart, Sitharaman, held a bilateral meeting signaling the growing closeness between Washington and New Delhi.
Both leaders underlined the deepening ties at a joint news conference. Yellen said the two countries are among the “closest partners in the world.” Sitharaman said that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington last month “paved the way for new avenues of collaboration propelling our partnership to a greater height.”
Treasury Secretary Yellen said the United States is working with India to help the South Asian nation’s transition to renewable energy.
"We look forward to working with India on an investment platform to deliver a lower cost of capital and increased private investment to speed India's energy transition," she said.
Yellen, who is on her third visit to India in less than a year, said the two nations are collaborating on a range of economic issues, including commercial and technological collaboration.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, a day ahead of the G20 meeting, she said the U.S. is pursuing an approach called “friend-shoring” with India — a term coined for diversification of supply chains away from countries that present geopolitical and security risks to global trade.
Yellen also said that ending the war in Ukraine is the best way to aid the global economy. She said Washington is working to cut off Moscow's access to the military equipment and technologies that it needs to wage war against Ukraine.
“One of our core goals this year is to combat Russia’s efforts to evade our sanctions. Our coalition is building on the actions we’ve taken in recent months to crack down on these efforts,” Yellen said.
Russia’s war in Ukraine has cast a shadow on the G20. At a meeting of finance ministers held in February, the group was unable to issue a joint statement after China and Russia objected to references that other members wanted to make on Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine.
Reform of international development banks, cryptocurrency regulations, and access to financing for countries to adapt to climate change are also on the agenda of the G20 meeting that will conclude Tuesday.
The G20, which includes advanced and emerging economies, was created after the Asian financial crisis in 1999, and is seen as a forum that focuses on how to manage global economic crises. India, which has ambitions to emerge as the voice of what its officials call the “Global South” has said it wants the G20 to turn attention to problems faced by developing countries. Copyright © Jul 2023 Voice of America. All Rights Reserved.
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