India To Set The World's Economic Agenda, Says India's G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant

India will set the economic agenda for the world for the next year as it took over the presidency of the Group of 20 nations, or G20, on Dec. 1, said Amitabh Kant, India’s G20 Sherpa or emissary of the Indian government at the summit.

India has assumed the G20 presidency at a time when the world is passing through severe economic and political turmoil on account of the Covid pandemic followed by the Russia-Ukraine war, said Kant, while speaking to reporters before the first Development Working Group Meeting in Mumbai.

“Around 70 countries are facing severe debt crises. There is a severe energy and food crisis, more than two million people have lost their jobs, and over 20 million people have gone below the extreme poverty line,” Kant said.

“India’s role becomes critical in finding a solution to these issues. From being followers of economic agendas in the past, we will be able to set the economic agenda for the world for the first time in the next year, from December 2022 to December 2023,” Kant said.

According to Kant, there are three pillars of a good presidency that need to be followed to achieve the set target. First, there must be a strong political narrative and drive to accomplish what has been set out. Second, there must be good content to arrive at a decisive solution; and the third pillar is how to achieve the same.

"That is, the implementation and execution plan to achieve the goals with a level of perfection. I am sure India will do an excellent job," Kant said. 

"During the one-year period, India will project its digital transformation to the world. According to a World Bank report, India has achieved 50 years of growth in eight years using technology," Kant said.

The use of Aadhaar, Direct Benefit Transfer, Jan Dhan Yojana, etc., has helped India achieve the growth that even developed countries have failed to achieve, he said.

India has opened around 40 crore new bank accounts since 2015, equivalent to the population of the U.S. and twice the population of Russia, he said.

A record 4,860 crore digital transactions were done using UPI in 2021, which was three times that of China and seven times more than the combined digital payments of the U.S., Canada, U.K., France, and Germany, Kant said.

The G20 presidency will give India the opportunity to showcase and help provide solutions to the world in the digital space. “We can also take the healthcare narrative along with insurance and CoWin that we used to vaccinate over two billion people after Covid," he said.

It will necessitate institutional restructuring that was previously focused on the agenda and policies established by the Bretton Woods Agreement. They did not have the priorities set in today’s world for social development goals to end global poverty and look at issues created due to global warming, Kant said.

According to Kant, the developed world had promised to provide a $100 billion fund to developing countries to achieve the climate change goals, which need to be looked at since India only accounts for 1.4% of the global carbon emissions of 2.4 gigatonnes. Given India’s GDP, it can have up to 17% of the global carbon space share.

India is working on a policy of green transformation, he said. Given the progress in the renewable space and policy initiatives towards the adoption of green fuel like hydrogen, India can become the global champion in the production, adoption, and promotion of green fuel, Kant said.