Various meetings on the sidelines of G20Summit
In News:

• The 2018 G20 Summit is being held in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Nineteen leaders of the world’s biggest economies and a representative of the European Union will be holding a meeting on November 30 as part of the G20 summit.
• G20 Summit 2018: It will be the 13th meeting of Group of Twenty (G20) and the first G20 summit to be hosted in South America.

Theme of the summit:

• Argentina has selected the theme, ‘Building consensus for fair and sustainable development,‘ for the 2018 G20 Leaders’ Summit, and has identified three key issues for the agenda: the future of work, infrastructure for development, and a sustainable food future.

Various Meetings during G20 Summit:

• Indian Prime Minister has held series of bilateral, trilateral and other forms of meetings on the sidelines of G20 summit.

India-Saudi Arabia

• Saudi Arabia has offered to supply India with oil and petroleum products it needs to meet its growing energy demands.
• The two countries discussed the horizons of bilateral cooperation between the two friendly countries in the various political, security, economic, investment, agricultural, energy, cultural, and technological fields.

India –China:

• On the sidelines of the G-20 summit, the two sides discussed joint efforts to further enhance mutual trust and friendship between the two giant neighbours. 
• Many important consensus points on the development of China-India relations were being implemented and the relations are steadily improving. China referred to enhanced imports of rice and sugar from India and spoke of possibility of greater import of soyameal and rapeseed.
• The two sides agreed to work together to build an open world economy and make globalisation more open, inclusive, balanced and beneficial to all.

RIC (Russia –India- China):

• RIC revived its leadership level meet after 12 years called for strengthening multilateralism and reforming multilateral institutions including UN and WTO and underscored open global economy amid current geo-economic tensions. 

JAI(Japan-USA-India):

• India held its first trilateral meeting with US and Japan. Indian Prime Minister named partnership as ‘JAI’. “JAI” (Hindi for success or victory) – name for the triumvirate of Japan, America (the United States) and India.
• Leaders of JAI exchanged views on Indo Pacific, maritime and connectivity issues. The three leaders reaffirmed the importance of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific vision for global stability and prosperity, and pledged to deepen trilateral cooperation.

Informal BRICS Meeting:

• Leaders of the emerging economies bloc BRICS reached broad consensus on the sidelines of the G20 summit to uphold multilateralism and the rules-based world order.
• Indian Prime Minister reaffirmed India’s commitment to globalisation and reformed multilateralism. The prime minister also underlined that BRICS nations have to talk in one voice for the interest of developing nations in the United Nations and other multilateral organizations.

India and G20 summit:

• Prime Minister stressed on cooperation among G20 countries on issues related to global economy, trade tensions, crude oil prices and terrorism and fugitive economic offenders.

Prime Minister’s nine-point agenda to counter fugitive economic offenders:

• Strong and active cooperation across G-20 countries to deal comprehensively and efficiently with the menace fugitive economic offenders.
• Cooperation in the legal processes such as effective freezing of the proceeds of crime; early return of the offenders and efficient repatriation of the proceeds of crime should be enhanced and streamlined.
• Joint effort by G-20 countries to form a mechanism that denies entry and safe havens to all fugitive economic offenders.
• Principles of United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC), United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (UNOTC), especially related to “International Cooperation” should be fully and effectively implemented.
• FATF should be called upon to assign priority and focus to establishing international co-operation that leads to timely and comprehensive exchange of information between the competent authorities and FIUs.
• FATF should be tasked to formulate a standard definition of fugitive economic offenders.
• FATF should also develop a set of commonly agreed and standardized procedures related to identification, extradition and judicial proceedings for dealing with fugitive economic offenders to provide guidance and assistance to G-20 countries, subject to their domestic law.
• Common platform should be set up for sharing experiences and best practices including successful cases of extradition, gaps in existing systems of extradition and legal assistance, etc.
• G-20 Forum should consider initiating work on locating properties of economic offenders who have a tax debt in the country of their residence for its recovery.

Conclusion:

• G20 reflects the changed global scenario unlike the traditional institutions such as United Nations. It provides forum for developing countries like India to present their voice. It is evident from the fact that India will be the host of 2022 G20 summit. India should strive to build consensus in various global issues and strive to form the agenda.

Check Your Understanding:

• Discuss the importance of G20 in the changed global scenario. What role can India play in the G20 to assert multilateralism in international relations.