ASEAN’s position towards the G20 Seoul Summit

A seminar on ASEAN’s position towards the G20 Seoul Summit was recently held in Hanoi by the Vietnamese Ministry of Finance and the South Korean Ministry of Strategy and Finance.

South Korea is the host of G20 Seoul Summit 2010, while Vietnam is the president of ASEAN 2010, which represented ASEAN at the G20 Toronto Summit in Canada in June 2010 and was expected to deputise the bloc at the upcoming G20 Seoul Summit to be held in November. This is a good chance for both sides to share viewpoints on issues of mutual concern within the framework of G20, not only as bilateral dialogues but also as dialogues between the G20 and ASEAN.

According to Dr Junkyu Lee, senior advisor to the South Korean Ministry of Strategy and Finance, apart from the main contents agreed in previous G20 summits, like Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth, Financial Sector Reform, and International Financial Institutions Reform, South Korea will add two new contents to the agenda, namely the proposals for the Global Financial Safety Net and Development Issues. The Global Financial Safety Net can be understood as a multilateral support mechanism with different urgent assistance forms for financially troubled nations (loss of liquidity, reserves or debt crisis) because of external shocks. In the near term, the G20 can set up a regional-scale cooperation regime or mutual agreement on financial safety assistance. At present, G20 set up a specialist workgroup for the global financial safety net and will report study results to the G20 Seoul Summit.

Proposals for Development Issues put a premium on accelerating economic growth in poor countries. Solving Development Issues will make an important contribution to the implementation of the G20 Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth, especially the goal of global rebalancing and reduction of the development divide between rich and poor countries.

Besides the G20 Agenda, the workshop also discussed the participatory role of ASEAN in the G20. So far, ASEAN deputies attended two G20 Summits, including the G20 Toronto Summit, Canada in June 2010 where Vietnam attended on behalf of ASEAN. South Korea highly appreciated Vietnam, as the ASEAN chair in 2010, for participating in the G20 process and promised to propose making Vietnam an official ASEAN representative in G20 Meetings in 2010. The conference reached a consensus that ASEAN should play a more active role in the G20 process, commensurate with its role as one of the most dynamic regions on the global economic map. – VCCI

Tags: G20 Seoul Summit

Posted by VBN on Sep 5 2010. Filed under Int'l Cooperation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry