Experts to offer G20 policy recommendations at summit

Experts from both Chinese and overseas think tanks plan to offer policy recommendations to G20 leaders in the form of a proposal document.

The document, titled "T20 Policy Recommendations to the G20", which is expected to be released at the ongoing Think 20 Summit, the last session in a series of T20 events held this year, is an innovative move, said Huang Wei, director of the Department of Global Governance at the Institute of World Economics and Politics under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"It will be the first time that the T20 has made such a policy proposal in this way," Huang told China Daily prior to the T20 Summit, which opens on Friday and will last through Saturday.

The T20 is a mechanism by which experts and scholars from think tanks in the G20 member countries, and others, contribute wisdom and insights to the G20 dialogue.

The country holding the annual G20 presidency generally names a think tank within its territory to be responsible for the T20 events throughout that year.

"Compared with the previously loose cooperation between the T20 and G20, we wish to make a greater and more solid contribution to the upcoming G20 Summit this year," Huang said.

As a participant in drafting the document, Huang said the policy recommendations to the 2016 G20 Leaders' Summit, scheduled to be held on Sept 4 and 5, will mainly focus on economic issues.

"We present a global economic outlook and major risks in the first part of the document to allow for a better understanding of the overall context for development trends," she said.

In the following section, experts propose recommendations from the perspectives of enhancing global economic growth potential, improving global financial governance, facilitating international trade and investment cooperation and promoting inclusive and sustainable development.

"In addition to focusing on issues on the G20 agenda, we'd like to offer a further perspective on where the cooperation mechanism will go in the future," Huang said.

Thus, the recommendations also cover G20-related engagement groups, which "reflected the G20's attention to certain types of people and issues", she added. Under the G20 umbrella, the B20 is related to the business community, the T20 gathers think tanks, the C20 features dialogues with civil society organizations, and the Y20, W20 and L20 are concerned with issues affecting young people, women and labor respectively.

"It shows that the G20 mechanism is growing into a more diverse and more inclusive cooperation platform," Huang commented.

As the last leg of this year's T20 event series, the summit, co-organized by three Chinese think tanks - the Institute of World Economics and Politics, the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies and the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies - has attracted some 500 renowned experts and scholars, including more than 170 from overseas.

The three coordinating think tanks for this year's T20 series held nine meetings with their overseas peers in China and other countries including the United States, Germany, Switzerland and India from last December to June.

After in-depth discussions on such topics as global economic growth, innovation and structural reform, and international finance, trade and investment in previous sessions of the T20 series events from November to June, experts have offered valuable suggestions and solutions, which have been included in the policy recommendations, Huang said.

"Experts have high expectations for the 2016 G20 Hangzhou Summit and believe that a sound and robust Chinese economy will have a positive effect on, and will continue to make a great contribution to, the global economic recovery," according to the recommendations.

"China has no interest in seeing a fundamental change in the global governance pattern," Huang said. "I hope that international organizations will play a more prominent role in the global governance landscape."

T20 policy recommendations

Editors note: This years T20 Summit in Beijing on Friday and Saturday is expected to offer policy recommendations to the upcoming G20 summit. The following is an excerpt of the 'T20 Policy Recommendations to the G20':

I. Global Economic Outlook and Major Risks

The world economy continues to recover, but unevenly. The new round of industrial revolution is gathering momentum and there is still room for further raising the potential for global economic growth.

Meanwhile, world economic growth is still facing the risk of a further slowdown.

Total factor productivity of major economies is growing slowly. The role of technological progress in promoting world economic growth has gradually weakened.

The labor market is facing challenges.

There is a big shortfall in global public and private investment.

Financial market risks are increasing.

The ability of the international community to handle macroeconomic instability and financial turmoil is still inadequate.

The growth in global trade is slowing and trade creation capacities are declining.

II. Policy Recommendations

Enhancing global economic growth potential

Structural reforms should be at the core of long-term growth strategies for all countries.

Innovation should be the key driver of sustained economic growth.

More and higher quality jobs should be created.

Improving global financial governance

Macroeconomic policy coordination needs to be strengthened.

Financial crisis prevention and management should be enhanced.

The role of the International Monetary Funds special drawing rights in the international monetary system should be upgraded.

The governance structure of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank should be further improved.

Global taxation cooperation should be strengthened.

Facilitating international trade and investment cooperation

Global trade needs to be invigorated.

The central role of the WTO in global trade cooperation should be maintained.

Coordination regarding multilateral and regional trade rules should be strengthened.

A unified international investment system should be put in place.

Promoting inclusive and sustainable development

Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development should be strengthened.

The international system of development financing should be improved.

Infrastructure investment should be promoted.

The green economy needs to be promoted.

Efforts should be made to help underdeveloped countries and regions develop on a sustainable basis.

III. Expectations for the G20 Governance

The consistency of the G20 core agenda should be upheld.

The G20 should be further institutionalized.

The role of engagement groups should be enhanced.

The T20 should strengthen its own capacity building.

wangxin@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 07/29/2016 page6)