Minister of Finance, Enoch Godongwana, led SA delegation to the 3rd G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting
South Africa’s Minister of Finance, Enoch Godongwana, along with the Reserve Bank of South Africa participated in the 3rd G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting in Bali, Indonesia held from 15th to 16th July 2022. The G20 meetings were dominated by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, as well as soaring food and energy prices. Members held polar views on these issues and consequently, a G20 communique was not issued. The G20 Presidency, Indonesia, opted to publish a G20 Chair’s Summary of the meeting’s deliberation. https://g20.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/G20-Chairs-Summary-3rd-FMCBG…- 2022-1-1.pdf).
Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors were in broad support of:
- maintaining price stability;
- the importance of open, fair, rules-based trade, and fighting protectionism;
- prioritizing collective and coordinated action to get the pandemic under control;
- the establishment of a Financial Intermediary Fund (FIF) for pandemic Prevention, Preparedness - hosted by the World Bank;
- the swift implementation of the OECD/G20 two-pillar international tax package;
- strengthening long-term financial resilience of the international financial architecture, including promoting sustainable capital flows, and developing local currency capital markets;
- the voluntary re-channeling of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) or equivalent contributions - and call for further pledges from all willing and able countries to meet the total global ambition of USD 100 billion;
- efforts to implement the Common Framework for Debt Treatment beyond the DSSI in a timely, orderly and coordinated manner including the first meeting of the creditor committee for Zambia;
- supporting orderly, just and affordable transitions to achieve the objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in line with the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement, and
- buttressing global policy actions to increase resilience against cross-border spillovers, including by addressing structural vulnerabilities in non-bank financial intermediation (NBFI).
Lastly, Minister Godongwana leveraged the meetings by holding productive bilateral meetings with African Union representative, Finance Minister Amadou Hott; Canada Finance Minister, Chrystia Freeland; the United States Secretary of Treasury, Janet Yellen; and Turkey Finance Minister, Nureddin Nebati.
The Minister used the meetings to broach areas of mutual interest, such as the international tax system, the country’s energy transition and climate change, and the international community’s support for sustainable debt resolution in developing countries.
