Saudi King to chair Thursday’s G20 virtual summit

For 2020, Spain, Jordan Singapore and Switzerland are the invited countries

File picture of Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud.

Leaders of the G20 group of nations will hold a video conference on Thursday. The virtual summit will be led by King Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud of Saudi Arabia which is the current president of the economic grouping.

“G20 members will be joined by leaders from invited countries, Spain, Jordan, Singapore, and Switzerland as well as international organisations, the United Nations, the World Bank Group, the World Health Organisation and the World Trade Organisation, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the International Monetary Fund, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development,” said a statement issued by the Saudi authorities.

Apart from 19 of the biggest economies of the world, G20 also includes the European Union. For 2020, Spain, Jordan Singapore and Switzerland are the invited countries.

For Prime Minister Narendra Modi, this will be the second virtual leadership summit after the video summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) that he had initiated. The SAARC virtual summit held on March 15 led to the creation of the SAARC COVID-19 Emergency Fund . It is expected that the G20 virtual summit will yield a detailed plan for confronting the pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus known as COVID-19 .

Leaders of the grouping had been in contact over the last few weeks and held preparatory consultations. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar discussed the upcoming virtual summit with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on Tuesday. “Global challenges require global cooperation,” he said after his conversation.

Elaborating on the video conference of Thursday, a Saudi press release informed that Vietnam will represent the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations, South Africa will represent the African Union, the United Arab Emirates will represent the Gulf Cooperation Council and Rwanda will represent the New Partnership for Africa’s Development.