Pretoria - President Jacob Zuma will on Friday travel to Turkey to attend the G20 Summit, which brings together the world’s major advanced and emerging economies.
For South Africa, the G20 presents meaningful opportunities for advancing much-needed global governance reforms for promoting Africa’s sustainable development agenda, according to the Presidency.
This year the summit is being held in Antalya, Turkey, with an agenda that includes sessions on development and climate change, the global economy, growth strategies, employment, investment strategies, financial regulation, international tax, anti-corruption and trade.
The summit, which takes place at the weekend and ends on Monday, will also seek to address current global challenges such as terrorism and the refugee crisis.
South Africa will use its participation in the G20 to promote and strengthen the interests of Africa and of the South, on the understanding that, if managed carefully, the G20 presents meaningful opportunities for advancing much-needed global governance reforms and orienting the international development agenda.
“South Africa’s priorities in the G20 for 2016 include strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth, decent employment, efficient and responsive economic infrastructure, increased investment in infrastructure, reducing illicit financial flows through coordination in the international tax regime, coordination of international financial regulatory developments and international coordination on development (including in the context of domestic resource mobilization (DRM) and ensuring synergy with the UN processes on the post-2015 development agenda and financing for development),” said the Presidency.
South Africa also supports calls for the G20 to show international leadership in helping to achieve progress in multilateral institutions, on the understanding that the G20 is not a substitute for the UN system, but should support and add value to what is being done within the UN context.
The G20 leaders are expected to discuss the commitments made during the Brisbane Summit in 2014 - to contribute an additional 2 percent to global growth in 5 years’ time, above the levels prevailing at the time of the St Petersburg G20 Summit in 2013.
“To meet this commitment, the Brisbane Summit agreed on the need for member countries to develop national growth strategies. In 2015, the Turkish Presidency has put a lot of focus on implementation by member countries of their growth strategies,” said the Presidency.
The summit takes place against the background of a gloomy global economic climate, which has affected the South African economy immensely, in addition to domestic constraints.
South Africa’s economy is expected to expand at a pace of 1.4% this year and around the same rate next year. Key risks to higher growth levels for the economy are electricity constraints, lower commodity prices and the slowdown in China.
“To support growth, South Africa remains committed to pursuing prudent macroeconomic policies as well as implementing structural reforms set out in the National Development Plan (NDP),” said the Presidency.
Progress has been made by government in taking steps to reduce the binding constraints to long term growth.
At the margins of the summit, President Zuma is expected to attend a meeting of the BRICS leaders. They will take forward the programme agreed to at the last summit in Ufa, Russia.
“The BRICS leaders meet customarily on the margins of the G20,” said the Presidency.
The President will be accompanied by Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene. - SAnews.gov.za
