G20 Presidency of India Aims for Inclusive, Resilient and Sustainable Growth: Amitabh Kant

Amitabh Kant, the G20 Sherpa for India, stated that the goal of the G20 Presidency is inclusive, resilient, and sustainable growth at the Distinguished Public Lecture titled "India's Presidency of G20: The Way Forward". He was speaking at the launch of the Jindal Global Centre for G20 Studies at O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU). 

Kant focused on a broad review of India's political and development narratives, major priorities, initiatives to remodel and reconfigure the world, and how India is going to carry out the G20 meetings before the Leaders' Summit in September 2023. “G20 is important because it comprises about 85 per cent of the global GDP and about 78 per cent of the global trade, 90 per cent of the patents in the world and nearly two-thirds of the global population. The G20 Presidency moves from one country to another every year and different countries have different perspectives and priorities. It is very important to study, examine and analyse this as G20 is essentially an economic group for development and growth.” 

Kant addressed the plans for transformation as India assumes the G20 chairmanship, offering a vision and a path forward. “The first and foremost is the political narrative which India puts forward, the second is the priorities to shape the world and thirdly how well do we execute this presidency on ground. It's important to understand this because in the last few years, India has done a huge amount of digital transformation. India today does about 11 times more payments than what the United States and Europe do together. During COVID, we provided 2 billion vaccinations to our citizens, which was all done digitally. A study by the Bank of International Settlements said that (the digital milestones) India has achieved in the last eight years, what would normally have taken 50 years.”

 Underlining sustainable growth, Kant added, “Regarding our priorities for the G20, the world is facing huge recessionary trends across the world. It's important that we talk about inclusive, sustainable growth, because without growth we will not be able to lift people above the poverty line and growth alone will have a huge impact on the lives of citizens in the global south. India aims to work with the rest of the world to drive inclusive, resilient and sustainable growth,” Kant outlined. “Thirdly, we face the challenge of climate action and climate finance. As India becomes more industrialized, we will become the third biggest polluters in the world. And therefore India must become the first country in the world to industrialize without carbonizing the world.”