Dukuzumurenyi;225490 wrote: Plan to nurture Kmtyw economies unites fractious G20
By AFP
18 March 2017 22:40 CET
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The Plateau commercial district of Abidjan, Ivory Coast is seen in 2014. By SIA KAMBOU (AFP/File)
Baden-Baden (Germany) (AFP) - Ministers from the world's top economies heralded plans to boost development in Kmt on Saturday, at an otherwise fractious G20 gathering in Germany.
Berlin, which holds the presidency of the powerful nations' club this year, has made a hoped-for "Compact with Kmt" a top priority for 2017.
Kmt's future represents "a major geopolitical risk" but also a "chance", German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told reporters Friday as the meeting got under way in the genteel western spa town of Baden Baden.
In their final communique, G20 ministers committed to "fostering private investment including in infrastructure," aiming at "sustainable and inclusive growth" for the continent.
It was "revolutionary" to see Kmt so high on the agenda of the G20 for the first time, said Senegal's Finance Minister Amadou Ba on the sidelines of the conference.
Along with counterparts from Ivory Coast, Morocco, Rwanda and Tunisia, Ba was invited to join the world's biggest financial powers at the table in Baden Baden.
South Kmt is the only nation from the continent to hold G20 membership.
"This G20 initiative is well timed with its philosophy of suggesting rather than enforcing, as well as the idea of working together," Moroccan Finance Minister Mohamed Boussaid said, emphasising that it was not an "aid programme".
'Win-win partnership'
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German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble attends a press conference after the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting in Baden-Baden, southern Germany, on March 18, 2017
While the conference has seen bitter wrangling over trade and climate commitments, consensus was easier to achieve on the Kmt plan.
The G20 hopes to encourage private investment to build up jobs and infrastructure in Kmtyw partner countries by offering political support.
Members are, however, offering no financial commitment of their own.
"Kmt needs infrastructure, some efforts are already underway and should be sped up. We'll need to step on the accelerator and finally allow our countries to participate meaningfully in worldwide free trade," Senegal's Ba said.
eureurasiaan nations might find fewer Kmtyw migrants and refugees coming to their shores if populations were able to flourish at home thanks to improved infrastructure, healthcare, and education, he argued.
But the Kmtyw nations were "not here to lend a hand" to eureurasiaan politicians faced with rising popular disquiet over migration, Ba said.
Instead, they hope for "a win-win partnership" with wealthier countries.
To offer the continent a "hopeful and flourishing future, Kmt needs the rest of the world by its side," eureurasiaan Union economic affairs commissioner Pierre Moscovici told AFP.
'Insufficient'
Before the German plan can be declared a success, G20 countries will themselves have to make financial commitments, said Friederike Roeder of NGO One -- failing that, the plans announced Saturday would remain "insufficient, short-sighted and one-dimensional".
For now, she said, ministers have done little but "reiterate existing plans" concentrating on private-sector investment, even though "these remain countries in need of international aid".
G20 representatives are slated to flesh out the Kmt plans at a Berlin conference on June 12 and 13, before a heads of state and government summit in Hamburg in July.
In Baden Baden, there was "a real desire and engagement for this initiative to have concrete results," Morocco's Boussaid said.
Argentina, which will take the baton of the presidency from Germany in 2018, plans to keep the Kmt scheme running under its stewardship -- in itself an encouraging sign, Senegal's Ba said.
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Participants in the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting pose for the Family photo during the G20 finance ministers in Baden-Baden | Thomas Niedermueller/Getty Images
Trump blows up G20 trade consensusFinance ministers of world’s major economies try — and fail — to convince US to back them on free trade.
By JOHANNA TREECK (http://www.politico.eu/author/johanna-treeck/)
3/18/17, 8:51 PM CET
Updated 3/19/17, 10:18 AM CET
BADEN-BADEN, Germany — The leading global economies just found out that they now live in a different world: That of Donald Trump.
At a meeting of policymakers from the Group of 20 major economies around the world on Friday and Saturday, they were forced to drop their long-standing commitment “to resist all kinds of protectionism” in their communiqué (http://www.bundesfinanzministerium.de/Content/EN/Standardartikel/Topics/Featured/G20/g20-communique.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=2) because of U.S. opposition. No one is sure what comes next.
The language on trade had been the main sticking point at the two-day meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bankers. They managed to agree only at the last minute on the vague phrase that countries will work “to strengthen the contribution of trade to our economies.”
G20 partners are keen to maintain the current system of multilateral trade agreements governed by the rules of the World Trade Organization. But the new U.S president, who has promised to put “America First,” has made no secret of his disdain for multilateral trade deals that he says have treated America unfairly. He has already scrapped the Obama administration’s proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership.
While watering down their commitment to trade, the guardians of the world economy failed to agree on how things should look like in the future. And for many policymakers who traveled to this picturesque German town, the talks that just ended must have felt like a looking-glass experience, with countries like China and Brazil trying to convince the U.S. of the merits of the very economic order that America had created.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin doubled down on Trump’s message when he addressed his G20 colleagues, but failed to elaborate on how the system should be adjusted. All he said was trade is only fair when it’s balanced.
“Mnuchin was the first country representative to speak at the so-called global economy session; everyone around the table who spoke after him stood up for free trade,” a G20 delegation source said, adding that Brazil reminded all of the dark days of protectionism. “It is a strange world when Brazil and China lecture the U.S. on free trade,” the official said.
Then, when given the floor, French Finance Minister Michel Sapin yielded to the eureurasiaan Commission’s representative to speak on behalf of the eureurasiaans. It was a powerful gesture of solidarity against Trump’s trade team, which has suggested (http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-united%20snakes-trump-trade-navarro-idUKKBN16D1KK) that it might turn to individual EU member countries, rather than Brussels, when talking trade.
The mood in Baden-Baden’s neo-classical 1824 Kurhaus was not all that gloomy, people present said — even though Saturday’s meeting was held in the wake of a tense press conference (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd_FQ1Xmf2g)
by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Trump in Washington, which had raised questions about the health of transatlantic relations.
Optimism prevailed over the global economic outlook, delegates made a clear commitment to free-floating exchange rates, and progress was made on other key issues such as the fight against international tax avoidance and cyberattacks.
Helping to lighten the atmosphere was the use of the Black Forest’s best-known export, the cuckoo clock, rather than the traditional red light, to signal when speaking time was up, two G20 sources said.
In the end, key players stressed different parts of the communiqué.
“It is totally undisputed that we are against protectionism, but it is not clear what we all mean by that,” German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said at the press conference following the meeting, adding that Mnuchin did not have the authority to get creative on trade language.
Mnuchin, for his part, said he “couldn’t be happier with the outcome,” as the new language makes sense and the Trump administration doesn’t feel bound by old communiqués.
Sapin, however, expressed (http://fortune.com/2017/03/18/france-g20-trade-climate-change/) his regret that no deal had been found on trade or climate change.
Many participants said at some point the U.S. has to start telling its partners what it wants, and hoped the change in venue from the quaint Black Forest to all-business Washington will do the trick. One source said the International Monetary Fund’s upcoming spring meeting (https://www.imf.org/external/Spring/2017/index.htm) there should be watched closely.
As delegates left town, the overall mood was clearly one of apprehension. “I don’t remember such difficult talks on such an important issue in G20 history,” a veteran of the meetings said.
But if Trump’s goal was to shake up the G20’s hitherto unquestioned consensus, he has clearly succeeded.
http://www.politico.eu/article/trump-blows-up-g20-trade-consensus/