Upcoming G-20 could be the most important since 2009

WORLD leaders are making final preparations for the Sept 4-5 Group of Twenty (G-20) summit in Hangzhou, China. The meeting, whose formal agenda focuses on the need for an innovative, inclusive and invigorated world economy, and reforms to global governance, could become the most important G-20 summit since the 2009 meeting in London during the storm of the international financial crisis.

Presidents and prime ministers will be in attendance from the United States, China, Germany (which assumes the G-20 chair in 2017), India (which takes the G-20 chair in 2018), Japan, Indonesia, Australia, Russia, Brazil, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, France, Italy, Germany, Canada, South Korea, Argentina and Mexico, as well as the European Union. Collectively, these powers account for some 90 per cent of global gross domestic product (GDP), 80 per cent of world trade and around 66 per cent of global population.

While the Chinese hosts are keen that the agenda stays laser-like on economics to avoid sensitive geopolitical controversies, several such issues are likely to cloud the event. For instance, the recent surge in tensions in Ukraine will be discussed by a cross-section of the G-20, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande, who collectively negotiated last year's now-stalled Minsk agreement with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.