SME Times News Bureau | 18 Jul, 2020
Union Minister for Finance
Nirmala Sitharaman participated in the 3rd G20 Finance Ministers and
Central Bank Governors (FMCBG) meeting under the Saudi Arabian Presidency through
Video Conferencing on Saturday to discuss the global economic outlook amid
evolving COVID-19 pandemic crisis along with other G20 Finance Track priorities
for the year 2020.
The Finance Minister,
in the first session of the meeting, talked about the G20 Action Plan in
response to COVID-19 which was endorsed by the G20 Finance Ministers and
Central Bank Governors in their previous meeting on 15th April 2020.
This G20 Action Plan
lays out a list of collective commitments under the pillars of Health Response,
Economic Response, Strong and Sustainable Recovery and International Financial
Coordination, aimed at co-ordinating G20 efforts to fight the pandemic.
Sitharaman emphasized
that it is crucial to ensure that this action plan remains relevant and
effective.
She shared her
perspective on the way forward on the action plan and highlighted the need for
international coordination required in addressing the spill-over effects of
exit strategies.
Emphasising that the
Action Plan needs to reflect how the economies are balancing their supply side
and demand side measures in response to COVID-19, Sitharaman shared with her
counterparts how India is working on ensuring this balance through credit
schemes for greater liquidity, direct benefit transfers, and employment
guarantee schemes.
The Finance Minister
specifically referred to India’s comprehensive economic package to address
recovery and growth amounting to over $295 Billion, about 10 per cent of
India’s GDP.
Adding to this, Sitharaman
also spoke about the procyclicality of credit rating downgrades by the rating
agencies and its deterrent impact on policy options, particularly for EMEs.
In the second session
of the meeting, the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors discussed
the developments on G20 Finance Track deliverables under the Saudi Arabian
Presidency.
In her intervention, Sitharaman
discussed two such deliverables. First, enhancing access to opportunities for
Women, Youth and SMEs is a priority agenda under Saudi Presidency and a Menu of
Policy Options on Access to Opportunities has been developed by G20 under this
agenda.
The Menu presents
country experiences of G20 members related to policies aimed at: Youth, Women,
Informal Economy, Technology & Adult Skills, and Financial Inclusion. The
Finance Minister noted that this agenda has assumed even greater importance now
as the pandemic has most impacted the vulnerable sections.
Second, referring to
the International Taxation agenda and the intended deliverable of formulating a
solution for addressing challenges related to digital taxation, Sitharaman
noted the progress on the agenda and said that it is imperative that this
consensus based solution should be simple, inclusive and based on a robust
economic impact assessment.