At G20 meet, FM Nirmala Sitharaman stresses timely debt restructuring to address global crisis

New Delhi, April 13

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday called for timely debt restructuring as a solution to the global debt crisis, stressing it was closely intertwined with addressing the global poverty challenge. Addressing the second G20 meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors on the first day, Sitharaman noted that the crisis adversely affected countries most in debt as these also housed the poorest people, according to tweets posted by the Ministry of Finance.

Sitharaman is co-chairing the two-day meeting with Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das in Washington.

The meeting also discussed key challenges to the global economic outlook and explored possible areas of policy coordination on pressing global issues, besides exchanging views on accelerating progress on deliverables envisioned during the G20 India presidency.

Sitharaman discussed the progress made on the agenda of strengthening multilateral development banks (MDBs), including hearing from MDBs on the implementation of recommendations of the Capital Adequacy Framework Review Panel and sought G20 members’ views on the way forward.

Speaking on Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable, Sitharaman emphasised India’s commitment to all global efforts to address growing debt vulnerabilities and welcomed the partnerships with the IMF and the WB to advance this agenda. Sitharaman interacted with the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry. Industrialists from over 60 companies engaged in sectors such as financial services and energy attended the interaction.

Strategic partnership

• Sitharaman interacted with US-India Strategic Partnership Forum & Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry
• Industrialists from over 60 companies engaged in sectors such as financial services, energy attended the interaction
• Finance Minister also spoke on digitisation and production-linked incentives (PLI)