Startup engagement key priority under G20 India presidency

For the first time in G20 a startup engagement group will be started this year under India’s presidency. The Startup20 Inception will be held at Hyderabad from January 28-29 which will pave the way for the development of policy recommendations on entrepreneurship and innovation priorities in the year ahead.

“This year, we have started a Startup engagement group (in G20) because India is the 3rd best eco-system for startups. We have around 80,000 startups. We have developed 106 unicorns, their value is around $340 billion,” India’s G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant said on Monday.

The registration for Startup20 Inception meeting started on Monday. “Excited to invite everyone to the Startup20 Inception Meeting at Hyderabad on January 28-29, 2023,” according to a tweet from G20 India, the official account of India’s G20 Presidency.

Addressing a session at the 17th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas convention in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, Kant said meetings on startup would be among the key engagements of G20 this year.

Highlighting India’s achievements in startups, Kant said, “when we started the startup India movement in 2016 there were only 116 startups, today we have 80,000 startups.”

Kant informed that around 215 meetings in 56 cities across India are planned in one year of India’s presidency of G20. India holds the Presidency of the G20 from 1 December 2022 to 30 November 2023.

According to Kant, 43 world’s most powerful and influential leaders, mostly heads of state, will gather in New Delhi for the G20 main meeting scheduled to be held 9-10 September 2023.

Apart from representatives from the G20 countries, there will be 9 special invitees. There will also be representatives from international organisations including the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. “This will be the most powerful gathering of the world,” Kant said.

G20 comprises of around 85 per cent of the global GDP, it accounts for around 78 per cent of the global trade, around 90 per cent of the patents and around 2/3rd of the global population, he said.

Kant said India has assumed G20 presidency at a time when the world is facing several challenges including climate change, economic slowdown, the Covid crisis and the geo-political crisis in Europe.

He said poverty has increased and instead of making progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) the world has regressed.

“We have seen the challenge of very slow sustainable development goals. Instead of the progress we have regressed. 2030 the time by which the sustainable development goals are to be achieved we are mid-way through. 200 million people have gone below the poverty line. 100 million people have lost their jobs. There are challenges of Covid crisis,” he said.

“Almost 75 countries are facing debt crisis. There is a geo-political crisis in Europe. Then there is a crisis of food, fertilizer. All these are big crises and therefore, that is a challenge before India, that is a challenge before the world,” Kant added.

However, he claimed that India’s macro-economic fundamentals are strong and it is the fastest growing economy in the world.

“We have robust public finances. We have strong manufacturing and export growth. We are the top FDI destination. We are a leader in climate change, all these are driving our growth and this establishes our leadership,” he said.