By Consultants Review Team
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will leave on October 10 for an official visit to attend the annual meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), along with G20 meetings at Marrakech in Morocco. During the visit, the Finance Minister will also hold bilateral meetings with Indonesia, Morocco, Brazil, Switzerland, Germany and France, besides other associated meetings, scheduled to take place from October 11-15 in Marrakech. The annual meetings will be attended by Finance Ministers and Central Bankers from across the world. The Indian delegation will be led by the Finance Minister and will comprise officials from the Ministry of Finance and the Reserve Bank of India.
Finance Minister Sitharaman and RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das will co-chair the fourth G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (FMCBG) meeting, which will witness the participation of 65 delegations from G20 countries, invitee countries, and international organizations in multilateral discussions centered around a broad spectrum of important global issues. The fourth G20 FMCBG meeting will discuss ways to strengthen Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) to address shared challenges of the 21st Century and also take up the issue of crypto assets. During the meeting, Volume 2 of the Report on strengthening MDBs by the Independent Expert Group will also be released. Volume 1 was released during the 3rd FMCBG held in Gandhinagar, Gujarat.
On the sidelines of the fourth G20 FMCBG meeting, principals from the Indian G20 Presidency, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank will Co-chair the Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable on 12th October 2023. The roundtable will discuss the progress made on debt restructuring and explore ways and means to support the work of G20 countries. In a high-level event organized by the USA Treasury, the Union Finance Minister will engage in a Roundtable Discussion on “IMF policy priorities and how the institution should support its membership”.
The Union Finance Minister will also participate in a discussion on Partnership for “Resilient and Inclusive Supply-chain Enhancement” (RISE) – with the World Bank Group, organized by the G7 Japan Presidency. On the margins of the IMF-WB Annual Meetings in Marrakech, Finance Minister Sitharaman will participate in a discussion on the macroeconomic outlook during a G7 Africa Ministerial Roundtable. Sitharaman will also deliver the keynote address at a session on “MDBs evolution”, Co-hosted by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Center for Global Development.