Bengaluru to host two G20 meetings in December

Bengaluru will have two G-20 meetings in the first month of India’s tenure as the president of the 20-nation bloc.

The first “Finance and Central Bank Deputies Meeting” of India’s G-20 presidency will be held in Bengaluru from December 13 to 15. It will be followed by the G-20 “Framework Working Group Meeting” in the city on December 16 and 17.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi took over the G-20 presidency from Indonesian President Joko Widodo at the end of the 17th summit of the bloc at Bali on November 16. India will on December 1 commence its one-year term as the president of the premier forum for international economic and financial cooperation. The prime minister will host the leaders of the other G-20 nations for the bloc’s 18th summit, which will be held in New Delhi on September 9 and 10 next year.

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As India is likely to host a series of G-20 meetings during its presidency, the government decided to spread out the events across the country. The first meeting will take place at Udaipur in Rajasthan from December 4 to 7, when India’s Sherpa for the G-20 summit Amitabh Kant will host his counterparts from other nations.

This will be followed by the two back-to-back meetings in Bengaluru – to be attended by the senior finance officials and the deputy governors of the central banks of the G-20 nations. The representatives of the International Monetary Fund, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organisation and the World Health Organisation are also likely to attend the meetings in the capital of Karnataka.

A senior official in New Delhi told DH that a series of important G-20 meetings would be held in Bengaluru in the subsequent months, too.

The first Development Working Group Meeting of India’s G-20 presidency will take place in Mumbai from December 13 to 16. The first Joint Health and Finance Task Force meeting will be held virtually on December 19.

Indonesia’s G-20 presidency over the past 12 months was plagued by escalating tension between Russia and the western nations led by the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union, over the former Soviet Union nation’s military aggression against Ukraine. The president of the Southeast Asian nations visited both Moscow and Kyiv earlier this year but failed to broker peace or save the summit in Bali from being overshadowed by the growing tension.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict and the consequent food and energy crises and its adverse impact on post-Covid-19 economic recovery, particularly in the developing nations, is likely to dominate the G-20 agenda under India’s presidency unless the war comes to an end.

Unveiling the logo and the theme of India’s G-20 presidency on November 8 last, the prime minister had said that the events during the run-up to the summit of the block in New Delhi would not be limited to the national capital or a few places only, but would be spread out across the country.