Summit set to chart economic direction

The G20 summit, to be held in the East China city of Hangzhou, will focus on international cooperation in the face of economic risks and challenges to achieve sustainable and balanced growth, officials said Monday.

Vice Foreign Minister Li Baodong said this summit hopes to give the G20 group a leading role in charting the right direction for the world economy. The group members will also strengthen their partnership to deal with risks and challenges, he said at a media briefing in Hangzhou.

The 11th summit will be held from September 4-5 in Hangzhou.

Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao said that the financial crisis' impact still lingers and impedes growth, resulting in the slow and uneven recovery around the world.

Therefore, the G20 summit's goal is to facilitate a policy consensus. Countries that still have fiscal space should take more measures, he added.

President Xi Jinping will attend and chair the G20 summit with the theme, "Toward an Innovative, Invigorated, Interconnected and Inclusive World Economy," Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Lu Kang announced on Monday.

Xi will also attend an informal BRICS leaders meeting and deliver a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the G20 business forum, which will be held in Hangzhou from September 3-4.

"The theme concentrates on the two most pressing problems facing the world economy: uneven recovery after the financial crisis and relatively low economic growth," said Zhang Haibing, director of the Institute for World Economy Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, told the Global Times.

"Innovation and invigoration represent growth, meaning that innovation and structural reforms may help the world economy find new sources of momentum," Zhang said.

Interconnection and inclusiveness indicate development through infrastructure interconnection, the strengthening role of multilateral development banks and implementation of the 2030 UN Agenda for Sustainable Growth, she said.

The G20 summit in Brisbane, Australia in 2014 set the global economic growth target at 2 percent in five years.

Sustainable development

The G20 summit will also for the first time issue a report on green financing, said People's Bank of China deputy governor Yi Gang.

"The report will be drafted by the G20 Green Finance Study Group, which was established under the Chinese G20 presidency to show China's concern for green and sustainable development," Zhang said. "In keeping with global demand, the move could be seen as a very positive response to the global fight against climate change."

Yi also said the G20 will strive to promote financial sector reform, which will be a key topic of the summit.

"The summit will focus on discussions of international financial reforms so as to ensure a relatively stable global financial market, which may cover coordinating macroeconomic and monetary policies among different countries," said Huo Jianguo, vice chairman of the China Society for WTO Studies.

From China's perspective, since the Chinese yuan's inclusion in the Special Drawing Rights takes effect in October, domestic financial regulators may need to make certain adjustments to the foreign exchange policies, Huo told the Global Times on Monday.

Zhu said the G20 members this year have been making progress on issues like financial reform, international taxation cooperation, green financing, climate funding and counter-terrorism fundraising.