G20 Meet of Finance Ministers & Central Bank Governors Began in Germany

The two day G20 finance ministers and central bank governors meet began in Baden-Baden, Germany on March 17, 2017.

• Focus: the meeting will focus on strengthening economic resilience in finance, digitalization and promote investment in Africa.

Key Highlight of the Meet

• The meetings between finance ministers and central bank governors will provide a preliminary discussion platform ahead the G20 Summit of heads of state and government, which will be held in Hamburg on July 7-8, 2017.
• This is the first global gather to discuss economic challenges since Donald Trump took over as the US President in January 2017. The gathering will help to set the tone for international commerce and finance.
• The meeting of the most powerful economies’ finance ministers is likely to be dominated by talk about whether to commit to free trade as was done in previous meetings or will some countries may put up barriers, like tariffs as Trump has promised.
• The Group of 20 countries would also discuss their longstanding ban on manipulating currencies to gain economic advantage.
• The meeting is likely to have impact since Trump has already moved away from the trans-Pacific free trade pact, threatened strict tariffs against multinationals with factories outside the United States and attacked currency manipulation by China.
• Besides, his order to keep jobs at home by making it costly for American companies to outsource is likely to dominate talks at the G20 gathering.
• The focus of the meeting will be on the final statement issued jointly by the finance ministers on the concluding day of the meeting on March 18, 2017.
• The result of the meeting would be shared by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann in a news conference on March 18, 2017.
• Besides, G20 finance ministers and central bank governors will also gather at the International Monetary Fund’s spring and annual meetings in April and October in Washington DC.

About G20 Association

The G20 is an international forum for the governments and central bank governors from 20 major economies.

• It was founded in 1999 with the aim of studying, reviewing, and promoting high-level discussion of policy issues pertaining to the promotion of international financial stability.
• It seeks to address issues that go beyond the responsibilities of any one organization
• The members include 19 individual countries namely Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, along with the European Union (EU).