Online Reporter
As some of the world’s most powerful finance ministers meet at a beachside resort in South Africa, this year’s Group of 20 host is trying to keep its agenda on course.
A global trade war, initiated by US President Donald Trump, and the acrimony it has wrought between major economies means that the group is struggling to keep its focus on South Africa’s stated aims, which include debt relief, sustainable finance and reforms to the world’s development-finance institutions.
That’s all complicated by the fact that the US, the world’s biggest economy, hasn’t sent its top officials to the events in South Africa this year, even though it’s due to take over the presidency of the group at the end of November.
“My hope is that we must have an agreement and emerge with a communique tomorrow,” South African Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said in an interview with Bloomberg TV’s Jennifer Zabassaja. “It has been a difficult period.”
A European official separately voiced optimism that outstanding points of contention over communique language had been resolved and they expect it to be agreed on Friday.
Achieving a communique — rather than a chairman’s summary that was all South Africa could show from its two previous finance meetings — would be a significant statement of consensus from the G20 if Godongwana can get agreement amid the shock waves radiating from Washington.
By imposing trade tariffs globally, scorning South Africa’s G20 motto of “solidarity, equality and sustainability” and pulling billions of dollars in funding for climate finance and international aid, the US is testing a multilateral order that has dominated global politics since the end of World War II.
A communique would be “a strong signal that multilateralism is still alive,” Haoliang Xu, acting administrator at the United Nations Development Programme, said in an interview. — Bloomberg
