Obaid Humaid Al Tayer participates in G20 high level seminar on international financial architecture

Obaid bin Humaid Al Tayer, Minister of State for Financial Affairs, has recently participated in the G20 high level seminar on international financial architecture held in Paris under the slogan "From Nanjing to Paris", where speakers addressed the most important evolutions of the international monetary system, including the IMF’s recent decision to include official currency of the People's Republic of China, RMB, into the special drawing rights (SDR) basket.

The seminar witnessed the participation of G20 finance ministers, Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as well as a group of central bankers from across the globe.

The seminar included three parallel breakout sessions, strengthening policy frameworks to tackle increased volatility, global financial safety nets and how to enhance them and strengthening the resilience of the international monetary system.

Al Tayer participated in the session – strengthening resilience of the international monetary system.

Speakers also discussed a number of key topics including currency internationalisation, exchange rate regimes, the role of the SDR and other forward-looking issues need to be discussed to prepare the ground for evolutions that are already ongoing, and to continue ensuring the stability and resilience of the international monetary system in the increasingly diverse yet interconnected global economy.

The session, strengthening policy frameworks to tackle increased volatility- discussed ways of enhancing the tools (fiscal, monetary, exchange rate and financial policies) aimed at dealing with volatility, in the current macroeconomic context. Discussion also tackled in particular the need for better monitoring and data, the prevention of vulnerabilities, and capital flow management. Participants discussed the promotion of debt sustainability and sustainable financing of countries, as well as actions to continue strengthening orderly and timely debt restructuring processes and management.

The session, global financial safety nets and how to enhance them, reviewed the adequacy and coherence of the existing tools to prevent and eventually deal with systemic crises when they occur. This discussion covered the adequacy of the size, architecture and design of the global financial safety net, including the different instruments of IMF, as well as the articulation between IMF and regional financing arrangements.

China has hosted G20 meetings last February with the participation of major economy finance ministers, and central bank governors; whereby these meetings raised a range of topics on policy coordination to support the recovery of the global economy and the consequences of the collapse in oil price.

The Group seeks, through its 2016 agenda, to focus on four key priorities including: creating a new path for growth, enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of the global economic and financial governance, developing international trade and investment as well as achieving inclusive and interconnected development.

G 20 includes key emerging economies from 19 countries, and the European Union, in addition the group represents two-thirds of the world’s population and accounts for 85 per cent of global GDP and 75 per cent of world trade. The inaugural meeting of G20 took place in Berlin in 1990.

Source:WAM