Nirmala Sitharaman highlights the outcomes of the first FMCBG meeting in Bengaluru

“By the participants of G20, India’s presidency has received strong support on all key priorities, support for our proposal brings it an expert panel providing a narrative, an updated vision of the Multilateral Development Banks MDBs that can make the MDBs capable of addressing the cross-boundary challenges and also for better development financing mandates that can be fulfilled. US Secretary Janet Yellen had come forward for their support putting up a front.” Stated by the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman while addressing the media highlighting the outcomes of the first FMCBG meeting in Bengaluru today.  Highlighting the expert panel for providing a narrative, an updated version of the MDBs, the Minister said that reforming the multilateral banks in such a way that the reforms would make them face the 21st-century challenges and also meet the developmental need of many countries can be better meant for which in the World Bank many of the actions have already been commenced. She said that one of the successes of the negotiation was to have arrived at a common position on the debt language. The vulnerable countries looking up to the G20 find some solutions to arrive at a position where debt stress can be relieved. Many of them are waiting for a very long time. The G20 is now standing to meet up the challenges of debt stress which many countries are raising. This development really reflects responsiveness and also taking up the responsibility of giving solutions which the G20 group has always shown. Four countries would benefit from the quick response by international organizations.

Talking about crypto in detail, the Minister said that the USA and UK remained supportive of the global coordination framework, particularly on the crypto currency. She said that step by step there is enough work for Crypto going on. Also mentioned is that there is wide acceptance of the risk involved and the concerns being expressed and various options for dealing with the problem have also been pointed out by various G20 Governors. This is something that is a work in progress. IMF and FSB are working in the said direction, she added. She further said that Saudi Arabia has really come up in the discussions of the consequences of food and energy security. China and Saudi Arabia came forward on climate finance mobilization, and Japan, the UK, and G20 Troika remained supportive of all priorities of the Indian Presidency. She said that the objective of the FMCBG is to seek guidance from the Ministers and Central Bank Governors on the areas of work that have been undertaken in the G20 Finance track. India has always tried to make efforts to be the voice of the Global South. The Minister further informed that broadly three thematic sessions were held. The first one was strengthening the multilateral bank to address shared global challenges of the 21st century so that they can address global debt vulnerabilities, and mobilize timely resources and adequate finance. The second is to deal with the sustainable developmental goals for mobilizing finance just for climate action and the third was to look at digital public infrastructure and look at sustainable cities for tomorrow and financial inclusion and productive gains. Ministers and governors recreated the need for well-calibrated monetary, fiscal, financial and structural policies in order to promote macroeconomic and financial stability and also maintain growth momentum. On the margins, we had a high-level symposium on digital public infrastructure.  She informed, “G20 troika members Indonesia, Brazil, and India had shared their success stories in the digital public infrastructure. We have given priority to India’s neighbourhood viz. Nepal, Bangladesh, Morocco, Egypt and Nigeria, Oman, and Mauritius were invited as guest countries to participate and they did attend the meeting. There was also a seminar and panel discussions on policy perspective on crypto currencies; SMEs financing and bridging the gap. ”It is pertinent to mention that in these three days, 500 delegates from G20 countries participated. The second meeting of FMCBG will be held in Washington in April.