At a time when the world faces continued economic slowdown and social hardship, the international community is counting heavily on India’s leadership of the G-20, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday.
India officially assumed the presidency of the G20 (Group of 20) on 1 December. The next G20 leaders’ summit at the level of heads of state/government is scheduled for September 9-10 in New Delhi.
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told reporters during a media roundtable “India, which holds the presidency of the G-20 countries, remains among the countries that perform better than the global average and by a good percentage, we count a lot on India’s leadership in the G-20. Because this is such a critical time for the world to protect its own well-being by protecting an integrated global economy. I hope India will do the tremendous global service of keeping us together”.
Georgieva praised India for embracing digitalisation
The CEO said in response to the report IMF “What we see working extremely well for India is how the country has embraced the digitization accelerated by COVID-19 as a strong comparative advantage, both for public policy and private sector growth”.
Kristalina Georgieva says “For public policy, because the combination of digital ID and digital public infrastructure allows India to move policy support to a digital platform and target beneficiaries exceptionally well, as well as become a shining example of vaccination carried out in priority areas. and in a highly effective manner, on the private sector side, because it has become a fertile ground for very rapid expansion of brand finance and businesses. And India intends to join the G-20 as an area to build comparative strength”.
According to Georgieva, one of the priorities in the G-20 is how to ensure that digitization is built on a public platform, a public infrastructure that will allow everyone to connect and significantly reduce the cost of digitization; how it can be a source of growth and employment. So that’s definitely one area.
India, she noted, had made some painful reforms that were now paying off. The country, she said, is facing difficulties on the climate front, a very dramatic impact on agriculture due to a very serious vulnerability to climate shocks, especially drought and high temperatures.
Georgieva says “India is obviously affected by developments in Asia. One of the countries – Sri Lanka is a neighbor, Pakistan is a neighbor – these are countries that are volatile. And of course the fact that China has slowed down so dramatically has an impact on the whole of Asia. If I am in India today, I would be more concerned about what is happening in the rest of the world and how it will affect me than domestic factors”.
By: Vaishali verma
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