At the end of an emergency summit held via video, G20 leaders pledged to pump 5 trillion dollars into the global economy, to face the effects of the Corona “Covid-19” pandemic, and to provide support to developing countries to fight the epidemic (According to Dept. of Public Information of Saudi Arabia and Xinhua).
The summit talks focused on how to protect the world’s most important economies from the consequences of measures taken to prevent the spread of the virus, while the fears from an economic recession looming over the suspension of flights, the closure of shopping centers and the curfew.
The leaders of the world’s largest economies stressed that they would form a united front to fight the repercussions of this global pandemic, despite the clear division between them, especially the tension and mutual accusations between Beijing and Washington against the background of this global health crisis.
The closing statement of the summit which was chaired by Saudi Arabia and attended by US Presidents Donald Trump and Russian Vladimir Putin, said that the countries of the group will provide support to developing countries to deal with the effects of measures to limit the spread of the epidemic, which caused the death of about 22 thousand people, and forced more than 3 billion people to stay at their homes.
“The process of dealing with the virus requires a strong, coordinated, and wide-ranging international response based on scientific evidence and the principle of international solidarity. We are strongly committed to forming a united front to confront this common threat,” the leaders said in their closing statement.
The statement added that the summit countries will pump more than $ 5 trillion in the global economy, in order to meet the social, economic and financial impacts of the pandemic.
It is worth noting that the G20 summit will be held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on November 21-22, 2020 and is considered the fifteenth meeting of the G20. The previous meeting was in Osaka in 2019.
On the other hand, the International Monetary Fund called on the leaders of the twenty countries to support its demand to freeze the debts of the poor countries, while the World Health Organization urged the countries of the Group of Twenty to provide support “to low and middle income countries.
Therefore, the statement of the Group of Twenty emphasized the speedy and decisive work with existing international organizations. On the front line of allocating a strong, coherent, coordinated and urgent financial package, the statement added that all these organizations are called to intensify coordination of actions among themselves, including with the private sector, to support emerging and developing countries facing health, economic and social shocks due to the virus.
The meeting differs from the G-20 summits that followed the financial crisis of 2008, when the group turned into a working cell to mobilize assistance to vulnerable countries, because of the tension and division that the world is witnessing now.
One day before the G20 summit, the G7 talks took place (the United States, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Canada, and Japan), during which US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused the Republic of China of participating in a campaign on social media that says that the United States was behind the virus that was first discovered in Chinese Wuhan. He added that senior diplomats from the Group of Seven major industrialized nations had agreed with him that Beijing was launching a “misinformation” campaign on the epidemic. After his hypothetical meeting with his counterparts in the group, Pompeo said, “The Chinese Communist Party poses a great threat to our health and lifestyle as the epidemic clearly demonstrated.”