FACT SHEET: G20 TURKEY 2015
The Group of Twenty (G20) is the premier forum for global economic and financial cooperation that brings together the world’s major advanced and emerging economies, representing around 85% of global GDP.
The G20 started in 1999 as a meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis. In 2008, the first G20 Leaders’ Summit was held, and the group played a key role in responding to the global financial crisis. G20 leaders have met nine times since 2008, continuing to focus on achieving strong, sustainable and balanced growth, promoting job creation and financial regulations that reduce risks and prevent future financial crises and modernizing international financial architecture.
The G20 members are: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union.
The presidency of the G20 rotates annually among its members. To ensure continuity, the Presidency is supported by a “Troika” made up of the current, immediate past and future host countries. In 2015, the members of the G20 Troika are Turkey (current President), Australia (2014 President) and China (2016 President).
Apart from G20’s official engagement groups B20, C20, L20, T20 and Y20, Turkish presidency will be launching a new engagement group W20 (Women20), concentrating on how to enhance the role of women in business.
The G20 works closely with international organizations including the Financial Stability Board, the International Labour Organization (ILO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United Nations (UN), the World Bank and the World Trade Organization.
The 2015 G20 Agenda
Three key objectives of the 2015 G20 agenda for the global economy will be:
- Strengthening the Global Recovery and Lifting Potential
- Enhancing Resilience
- Buttressing Sustainability
In 2015, Turkey will attach utmost importance to strong cooperation and effective coordination among its members and also strengthening interaction between the G20 and Low-Income Developing Countries (LIDCs).
Turkey aims to channel the influence of G20 to reach at concrete and beneficial outcomes for the global community. In this regard, Spain, Azerbaijan, Singapore and the chairs of ASEAN (Malaysia), African Union (Zimbabwe) and NEPAD (Senegal) are invited to the G20 meetings in 2015.
Turkish Presidency Priorities
In 2015, the Turkish G20 Presidency will focus its efforts on ensuring inclusive and robust growth through collective action. This can be formulated as the three I’s of the Turkish Presidency:
- Inclusiveness: At the domestic level, in order to ensure that the benefits of growth and prosperity are shared by all segments of society, the Turkish Presidency will emphasize issues pertaining to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) as a cross- cutting subject, follow up on the commitment to strengthen gender equality in employment as well as address youth unemployment. At the international level, challenges facing Low Income Developing Countries (LIDCs) will be raised more vocally in the G20 agenda.
- Implementation: The G20 members have committed to lifting the collective economic growth by an additional 2,1% by 2018, which will bring an additional 2 trillion US Dollars to the world economy, equal to the size of the Indian economy. Implementation of the collective G20 commitments will be vital for the credibility of G20. To keep G20 accountable to its reform commitments, the Turkish Presidency aims to develop an implementation monitoring mechanism with the cooperation of members and the contribution of international organizations.
- Investment for growth: Investment is a central theme for the Turkish Presidency agenda, as it is critical both for lifting the global growth potential and also for generating new jobs.
KEY G20 EVENTS in 2015
- Finance Ministers Meetings:
- February 9-10, 2015, Istanbul, TURKEY
- April 17, 2015– Washington, D.C., USA
- September 4-5, 2015– Ankara, TURKEY
- Working Dinner: October 8, 2015– Lima, PERU
- Food and Agriculture Ministers Meeting: May 6-8, 2015– Istanbul, TURKEY
- Labor and Employment Ministers Meeting: September 3-4, 2015– Ankara, TURKEY
- Tourism Ministers Meeting: September 29-30, 2015, Ankara, TURKEY
- Energy Ministers Meeting: October 2, 2015– Istanbul, TURKEY (First Time in G20 History)
- Trade Ministers Meeting: October 5-6, 2015– Istanbul, TURKEY
- G20 Leaders Summit : November 15-16 2015, Antalya, TURKEY