New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will be embarking on an official visit to the USA, beginning April 10, 2023 for attending the annual spring meetings of the World Bank Group (WBG) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), along with G20 meetings.
These meetings are scheduled to take place from April 10 to April 16, 2023, in the WBG and IMF Headquarters in Washington DC. The spring meetings will be attended by finance ministers and central bankers from across the world.
She will be also hosting the Second G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (FMCBG) meeting under India’s G20 Presidency. Sitharaman and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das, will jointly chair the 2nd G20 FMCBG meeting on April 12-13, 2023.
The focus of these sessions will be to deliberate on issues such as addressing food & energy insecurity, managing global debt vulnerabilities, strengthening Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs), mobilising finance for climate action, advancing financial inclusion, and accelerating progress on international tax and financial sector issues. The meeting will take stock of the progress made on outcomes envisaged under India’s G20 Finance Track agenda.
The 2nd G20 FMCBG meeting will advance efforts towards the preparation of G20 India Finance Track deliverables for the 3rd G20 FMCBG meeting to be held in Gandhinagar, India, in July 2023. These meetings are expected to provide informed Finance Track contributions to the Leaders Declaration set for adoption in the New Delhi Summit in September 2023.
On the sidelines of the spring annual meetings, the finance minister will have bilateral engagements with her respective counterparts from G20 countries and heads of other delegations, including major international organisations, to discuss issues and areas of mutual interest and cooperation under India’s G20 Presidency.
During the official visit, a meeting of the Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable will be co-chaired by India, IMF, and the World Bank on April 12 to discuss the current global debt landscape and ways to address existing challenges in debt restructuring.
In the course of her visit, Sitharaman will participate in a fireside chat at the Peterson Institute of International Economics (PIIE) on April 10. The next day in a high-level meeting, the Finance Minister will meet the US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to discuss issues of mutual interest.
On April 14, 2023, a high-level seminar on “Macro-financial implications of crypto assets” will be held to review the macro-financial implications of crypto assets and discuss policies to leverage benefits and contain risks. On the same day, she will participate in a high-level Seminar on ‘Stacking up the benefits of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI)’ organised by the IMF.
She will also meet the G20 expert group on strengthening MDBs on April 15, 2023, to discuss the need for an updated MDBs ecosystem for the 21st century towards financing sustainable development goals and transboundary challenges.
Other side events that will be held on the margins of the IMF-WB Spring Meetings include an event on ‘Enhancing the Economic Empowerment of Women as Entrepreneurs and Leaders’, ‘LiFE (Lifestyle for Enviornment) event on Behavioural Change to Tackle Climate Change’, and ‘Launch of debt restructuring negotiation process on Sri Lanka’, among others.
