SAUDI KING TO CHAIR G20 VIRTUAL SUMMIT

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Focus: GS-III International Relations, Prelims

Leaders of the G20 group of nations will hold a video conference on 26th March 2020.
The virtual summit will be led by King Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud of Saudi Arabia which is the current president of the economic grouping.

G20 members will be joined by leaders from invited countries, Spain, Jordan, Singapore, and Switzerland as well as international organisations, the United Nations, the World Bank Group, the World Health Organisation and the World Trade Organisation, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the International Monetary Fund, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
Apart from 19 of the biggest economies of the world, G20 also includes the European Union. For 2020, Spain, Jordan Singapore and Switzerland are the invited countries.
For Prime Minister Narendra Modi, this will be the second virtual leadership summit after the video summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) that he had initiated.
The SAARC virtual summit held on March 15 led to the creation of the SAARC COVID-19 Emergency Fund.
It is expected that the G20 virtual summit will yield a detailed plan for confronting the pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus known as COVID-19.

The G20 (or Group of Twenty) is an international forum for the governments and central bank governors from 19 countries and the European Union (EU).
Founded in 1999 with the aim to discuss policy pertaining to the promotion of international financial stability, the G20 has expanded its agenda since 2008 and heads of government or heads of state, as well as finance ministers and foreign ministers, have periodically conferred at summits ever since.
It seeks to address issues that go beyond the responsibilities of any one organization.

Membership of the G20 consists of 19 individual countries plus the European Union.
The EU is represented by the European Commission and by the European Central Bank.

As of 2017 there are 20 members of the group: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Spain is a permanent guest invitee.
Collectively, the G20 economies account for around 90% of the gross world product (GWP), 80% of world trade (or, if excluding EU intra-trade, 75%), two-thirds of the world population, and approximately half of the world land area.

The G20 Presidency rotates annually according to a system that ensures a regional balance over time.
For the selection of presidency, the 19 countries are divided into 5 groups, each having no more than 4 countries. The presidency rotates between each group. Every year the G20 selects a country from another group to be president.
India is in Group 2 which also has Russia, South Africa, and Turkey.
The G20 does not have a permanent secretariat or Headquarters. Instead, the G20 president is responsible for bringing together the G20 agenda in consultation with other members and in response to developments in the global economy.
TROIKA: Every year when a new country takes on the presidency (in this case Argentina 2018), it works hand in hand with the previous presidency (Germany, 2017) and the next presidency (Japan, 2019) and this is collectively known as TROIKA. This ensures continuity and consistency of the group’s agenda.

The G20 developing nations (and, occasionally, the G21, G23 or G20+) is a bloc of developing nations established on 20 August 2003.
Distinct and separate from the G20 major economies, the group emerged at the 5th Ministerial WTO conference, held in Cancún, Mexico, from 10 September to 14 September 2003.
The group accounted for 60% of the world’s population, 70% of its farmers and 26% of world’s agricultural exports.