[CA] 2018 G20 Summit

The 2018 G20 Summit was held in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Nineteen leaders of the world’s biggest economies and a representative of the European Union held a meeting on November 30, 2018 as part of the G20 summit. It is the 13th meeting of Group of Twenty (G20) and the first G20 summit to be hosted in South America.

About G20:

Formed in 1999, the G20 is an international forum of the governments and central bank governors from 20 major economies.

Collectively, the G20 economies account for around 85 percent of the Gross World Product (GWP), 80 percent of world trade.

To tackle the problems or the address issues that plague the world, the heads of governments of the G20 nations periodically participate in summits. In addition to it, the group also hosts separate meetings of the finance ministers and foreign ministers.

The G20 has no permanent staff of its own and its chairmanship rotates annually between nations divided into regional groupings.

The first G20 Summit was held in Berlin in December 1999 and was hosted by the finance ministers of Germany and Canada.

Objectives:

·       The Group was formed with an aim of studying, reviewing, and promoting high-level discussion of policy issues pertaining to the promotion of international financial stability.

·       The forum aims to pre-empt balance of payments problems and turmoil on financial markets by improved coordination of monetary, fiscal, and financial policies.

·       The forum seeks to address issues that go beyond the responsibilities of any one organisation.

Member Countries:

The members of the G20 consist of 19 individual countries plus the European Union (EU).

The 19 member countries of the forum are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United States.

The European Union is represented by the European Commission and by the European Central Bank.

Shaktikanta Das, the former Secretary of the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), has been appointed as India’s G20 Sherpa till December 31, 2018 for the Development Track of the G20 summit. A Sherpa is a personal representative of the leader of a member country at an international Summit meeting such as the G8, G20 or the Nuclear Security Summit and are responsible for thrashing out the details before the meeting of the leaders.