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Doha Events 2011

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With The Morning Coffee


G20 Seoul Summit

G20 leaders adopt Seoul Consensus

By Emme Suelto

Seoul: The G20 Seoul Summit ended yesterday afternoon with the announcement of the much-awaited Seoul Consensus that addressed the hotly-contested issue of currency & foreign exchange rate. Twenty leaders from the world’s richest countries, promised to adopt the Seoul Action Plan, composed of a comprehensive, cooperative and country-specific policy actions, to ensure an unwavering commitment to global economic cooperation.

As part of the Seoul Action Plan, G20 countries reinforced the result of the Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governor’s meeting last month by approving a market-determined exchange rate system and refrainingfrom competitive devaluation. The Seoul Action Plan also called for the implementation of structural reforms that boost global demand and foster job creation by reducing trade barriers and simplifying regulation.

“We agreed to work towards early conclusion of the Doha Development Round and reaffirmed our political commitment. We also decide to push ahead with negotiations keeping in mind that 2011 maybe our window of opportunity. And we reaffirmed our commitment for trade liberalization. Trade liberalization creates jobs,” South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak said during a press conference right after the Seoul Summit negotiations concluded.

The two new agendas of the summit which are the creation of a global financial safety net and the issue of development put forth by South Korea during the summit were also included in the Seoul Consensus. The G20 eased IMF lending terms and introduced a multi-country flexible credit line (FCL), which will allow the simultaneously lending to multiple countries jointly facing crisis.

“In this open, global financial system, capital moves very rapidly so even economies with strong fundamentals could be destabilized…Improvements in IMF lending facilities will alleviate the stigma effect stemming from IMF lending facilities,”Lee said.

In terms of development issues, the Seoul Consensus focused on resolving nine significant bottlenecks to growth in developing countries which are infrastructure, human resources development, trade, private investment and job creation, food security, growth with resilience, financial inclusion, mobilization of domestic resource and knowledge sharing by applying concrete measures through the Multi-Year Action Plan on Development.

South Korea has often emphasized the need to assist developing countries in a more meaningful and sustainable manner by helping develop their economies.

“G20 countries take up 85 percent of the world GDP but there are 170 countries that are not members of the G20 and most of them are developing countries so the government of the Republic of Korea has set the theme of this summit as ‘Shared Growth, Beyond Crisis’ and we have made efforts to open our ears to the developing countries,” Lee said.

Lee added that the Seoul Consensus which adopted today continues active aid to developing countries and introduces new development strategies for closing development gaps and encouraging the developing countries to secure their own growth potential and develop local capacity.

Despite its rocky start, President Lee was pleased that the G20 leaders were able to deliver on all the commitments made during the Toronto Summit. France will host the next G20 Summit in Cannes in November next year.

The peninsula

G20: No breakthrough on foreign exchange

By Emme Suelto

Seoul: The G20 Summit, under the theme, “Shared growth, beyond crisis” opened here yesterday with deputy ministers negotiating for their respective countries failing to reach agreement on the key issues of foreign exchange and current account imbalances.

G20 spokesperson Kim Yoon Kyung announced at a press briefing that the participants involved “have not yet been able to find a middle ground” because of “considerable differences”

However, progress was made on other issues on the G20 Summit agenda.

“Other than the framework, we have made good progress and regarding the framework, apart from the foreign exchange and the current account issue, there has been progress,” Kim said.

The Summit is expected to finalise discussions today on major financial reforms such as a new bank capital and liquidity framework and the strengthening of regulation and supervision of SIFIs.

Ho-young Ahn, the South Korean Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Ambassador at Large for G20, said in a press briefing that the issue of development had also been put on the agenda for the Summit because they were not fully satisfied with how the issue was being pursued in the international community.

“If development goals could be pursued in a more sustainable manner, then developing countries should be assisted in a meaningful manner with respect to how to develop their own economies,” Ahn said.

Ahn further explained that since the G20 leaders have agreed during the Pittsburgh Summit that G20 is going to be a premier forum for international economic cooperation, then the larger international economic community, other than the G20 member countries, should also be taken into account.

Today’s plenary meetings will start with the discussion on the Global Economy and Framework followed by a second plenary session on IFIs Reforms and a photo session. The third session will tackle the issue of development and financial inclusion while there will be a working lunch to discuss trade, climate change and green growth. In the afternoon, the issue of financial regulatory reform will be taken up in the fourth plenary session while energy, anti-corruption and the Seoul G20 Business Summit, which concluded yesterday with recommendations from world business leaders.

The final plenary session will end with the declaration of the G20 Seoul Summit Communiqué.

The Peninsula

Non-G20 views to find place at summit

BY Emme Suelto

Seoul: The South Korean government is keen on presenting the opinions of non-G20 member countries like Qatar at the G20 Summit that begins today.

“The government is focusing priority under the mindset that G20 is not just about the 20 member countries but also it should be shared by non-G20 member countries as well,” said Kim Sung Hwan, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade in a press briefing to journalists from non-G20 member countries covering the G20 Summit.

Against this backdrop, South Korea has provided briefings and introductions about G20 agendas to various countries and regions, especially to the 172 non-G20 member countries.

As the chair country for this year’s summit, South Korea has invited five countries that are not members of G20.

From Africa, South Korea has invited Malawi, chair of the African Union, and Ethiopia, chair of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, while Vietnam represents Asia as the chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Spain was included due to it being one of the top 10 economic powerhouses while Singapore represents 3G, a group of mid-power countries of which Qatar is a member.

“We have also invited WTO, OECD and other international organisations and of course the Secretary-General of the United Nations is attending. All of these organisations have many countries as its member so I think they can also represent the interest of non-G20 members,” he added.

At the same time, the government has included development issues as part of the G20 agenda to provide an avenue to discuss the issues of non-G20 member countries during the G20 Seoul Summit.

“Development is very important because G20 leaders will have to reach out. Most of these developing countries are not included in the G20. As part of this reaching out process, development issues has been adopted as part of the G20 agenda,” Park Yung Chul, a distinguished professor in International Studies at Korea University and former chief economic adviser to the President of Korea from 1987 to 1988.

He added that what makes this new development approach different from the numerous development assistance programmes initiated by international organisations like the United Nations and other bilateral assistance programmes, is it will support and coordinate all existing development assistance programmes to improve their effectiveness.

Other agenda of the G20 Seoul Summit includes the development of framework for the economic recovery policy coordination, financial regulatory reform and the creation of global liquidity safety nets.

The Peninsula

3G bridging G20 and non-G20 countries

By Emme Suelto

Seoul: The Global Governance Group or 3G plays a very important role in bridging G20-member countries and non-G20 countries, Ho-young Anh, South Korean Deputy Minister for Trade told The Peninsula.

“G20 is only 20 members and so far as legitimacy is concerned United Nations is the most universal international institution we can think about, so I think this bridging role that is being played by the Triple G (3G) is a very important role,” he said on the sidelines of the ongoing G20 Seoul Summit, which began yesterday.

The 3G is a group of 27 small and medium non-G20 member countries which was established during the London Summit in April of last year.

Initiated by Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vanu Gopala Menon, the 3G was created in order to discuss issues of global governance of these 27 non-G20 member countries and channel their views into the G20 process. Qatar is a member of the 3G group of states.

In this year’s G20 Seoul Summit, Singapore, as the main initiator of the 3G, was invited along with Malawi, Ethiopia, Vietnam and Spain.

Giving evidence that although the 3G countries have yet to exert their influence on the world stage, the formation of the 3G is one step towards giving a voice to small and medium-sized countries who would not otherwise be heard on their own.

The Peninsula

G20 Seoul summit to focus on finance, reforms: Envoy

Doha: The exchange rate, trade deficit, possible overhaul of the IMF structure and the agenda of development are the among most urgent and important topics that will be taken up during the upcoming G20 Summit in Seoul, according to South Korean ambassador to Qatar, Chang See-jeong.

“For example, the exchange rate – among the super powers, the interest is very much high so we hope for some sort of mechanism should be set-up on the occasion of the G20 meeting,” he said at a press briefing yesterday.

The G20 summit, to be held on November 11 and 12, is one of the largest gatherings of world leaders and was established following the 1997 Asian Financial crisis in order to link developed and emerging economies to stabilise the global financial market.

This year’s G20 Seoul Summit will focus on creating a framework to reform international financial regulations as well as to take steps to bring market stability as the global economy recovers from the effects of the financial crisis.

Aside from this, the Summit will also discuss the agenda of development plans to reduce global poverty and the development gap, which South Korea is especially interested.

Korea is very unique

“In terms of development, Korea is a very unique country in a sense that it has already developed from a pure agrarian country to a donor country now,” Chang said.

“As a member of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) under the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), South Korea is part of the committee responsible for providing official development assistance to developing countries.

“Our direct experience in the process of development is very useful for the developing countries now. We can convey our direct experience – how we overcame the poverty and the under-development status during the last decade. We’d like to share that kind of experience in the G20 Summit and we’d like to have some initiatives for the realisation of the Millennium Development Goals by introducing a more detailed mechanism,” he added.

The much-anticipated G20 Seoul Summit is a summit of firsts as it is the first summit to be hosted and chaired by a non-G8 member country.

It is also the first time the summit has been designed concurrently with the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ meeting, which takes place immediately after the Seoul Summit in Japan.

The Peninsula

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