India’s G-20 leadership extremely effective, even if Russia generally absent: Janet Yellen

The Treasury Secretary said India’s G-20 leadership has proven effective on several fronts, including the reforms of multilateral development banks and addressing the debt concerns of vulnerable countries.

Russia’s war on Ukraine, which has escalated food and energy prices, is the most important threat to global growth, United States’ Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on September 8, stressing that the G-20 remains an effective forum to address global challenges even without Russia’s active participation, a reference to Vladimir Putin’s decision to skip the bloc’s New Delhi summit.

The Treasury Secretary said India’s G-20 leadership has proven effective on several fronts, including the reforms of multilateral development banks and addressing the debt concerns of vulnerable countries.

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“We see G-20 as the premier organisation that is taking on critical challenges facing the global economy and particularly the global South. And I believe the G-20, in spite of obvious problems due to Russia’s war against Ukraine, and Russia’s general absence from G-20 initiatives, I believe that G-20 has been extremely effective, and especially under India’s leadership. Our goals for the G-20 have coincided closely with those of India and we’ve tackled very important challenges,” Ms. Yellen remarked.

On the prospects of the G-20 summit in New Delhi yielding a communique, Ms. Yellen noted it is challenging to craft such language but the negotiators are working hard to do so. “We stand ready certainly to work with India to try to draft a communique that successfully addresses this concern,” she said in the capital.

The Treasury Secretary exuded confidence about being able to provide supplementary funds to help Ukraine, noting that there has been bipartisan support in both houses of the Congress for Ukraine. Reiterating that the most important thing “we could do for global growth is for Russia to end its brutal war on Ukraine”, Ms. Yellen, however, expressed surprise at the strength and resilience of the global economy.

“Recently, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has somewhat improved its economic projections. But many countries have built important buffers which have enabled them to weather very significant shocks to the global economy. And whilst there are risks and some countries that have been certainly affected, overall, the global economy has been resilient and as you know, the United States has done particularly well,” she noted.