By Vera Samuel Anyagafu

Apart from the well organised meetings, delicate Hangzhou cuisines, grand banquets, breath-taking scenery and stunning opening and closing performance, the world highly praises the solutions proposed by the Chinese government, which based on its observation at the trend of the world economy and 38 years experience of implementing reform and opening up policy.

The G20 Hangzhou Summit, points the way and set the course for the world economy, as world leaders reach consensus that the world economic recovery remains weak, weighed down by insufficient drivers of growth and negative impact of regional and international hot-spots and global challenges, with a promise to further strengthen macro-policy dialogue and coordination, work in the spirit of partnership to promote mutual help and win-win cooperation, while, concentrating their minds and energy to pursuing stronger, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth for all economies.

In view of this, the meeting agrees that addressing the risks and challenges of today’s world economy requires multi-pronged solution to tackling both the symptoms and root causes.
According to teaching of Chinese classics, “The governance of a country should be based on simple customs procedures, improved infrastructure, convenience for business transactions and preferential agricultural policies.”

China has put trade and investment high on the G20 agenda, supporting the G20’s efforts as it endeavors to strengthen institution-building in trade and investment, formulate the strategy for global trade growth, as well as the guiding principles for global investment policy-making, consolidating the multilateral trading regime and reaffirming its commitment against protectionism, with the hope that the measures will open up greater market and scope for development of individual countries and help revitalize trade and investment which are the two major engines of growth.

By this, a new path for growth and instilling new dynamism into the world economy, will come to play toadopt the G20 Blueprint on Innovative Growth, reflecting the right pathway toward sustained and healthy growth of the world economy.

Addressing pressmen, the Consul General, Chinese Consulate General, Mr. Chao Xiaoliang, said that Nigeria’s development potential cannot be overestimated. and that the G20 Hangzhou summit is of reference significance and provides some opportunities for Nigeria to tackle some challenges.

He advised for more knowledge-sharing platforms for peer-to-peer learning, the sharing best of practices, policies, measures and guiding tools, and multi-stakeholder discussions, while calling for the G20 to support agriculture and agribusiness development, deepen, broaden and update the local knowledge base to encourage industrialization through trade and deeper regional integration, industrial Revolution to strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation with Nigeria and other African countries.

Similarly, the Chinese government expressed the need to increase the interconnection of our rules and policies, adding that, “We need to maximize the positive spillovers and minimize the negative external impacts through coordination of our macroeconomic policies. At the same time, we also need to encourage mutual learning to address asymmetries in systems, policies and standards. We need to enhance the interconnection of our infrastructure.

China has put forward the global infrastructure connectivity alliance initiative to encourage multilateral development banks to adopt joint declaration of aspirations and give greater funds and intellectual support to infrastructure projects to speed up the process of global infrastructure connectivity. We need to promote win-win interconnection, foster and improve the global value chain and increase the participation of parties concerned so as to create a chain of win-win global growth.”

Consensus was reached also to ensure improved global economic and financial governance and advance the quota and governance reform of international financial institutions, as well as broaden the use of SDR, strengthen the Global Financial Safety Net and make the international monetary system more stable and resilient.

Corruption
Pointing out the need for deeper cooperation to further push back corruption and deprive all corrupt elements of any safe haven in G20 countries and beyond, the leaders pressed for more balanced global economic and financial governance, well-functioning institutions and effective actions that will secure world economic growth that will lead to ending corruption, saying that without cooperation from all over the world, international trade, and Global challenges such as climate change, refugee crisis and terrorism cannot be tackled.

Key engines of growth
To build an open world economy, leaders agree to fully leverage the role of the Trade Ministers’ Meeting and the Trade and Investment Working Group for continued support for the multilateral trading system.

In other words, look forward to renewed vitality of the world economy and continued robust advancement of economic globalization driven by strong international trade and investment, for a groundbreaking Action Plan on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The Paris agreement
However, attendees agree to take the lead in implementing the Paris Agreement on Climate Change proposing the G20 Initiative on Supporting Industrialization in Africa and LDCs.
These action plans and practical outcomes will help reduce inequality and imbalance in global development, deliver tangible benefits to people of the developing world, make important progress toward realizing the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, and contribute to the common development of mankind.

To this light, the Chinese government therefore proposes that all countries should work together to maximize and quicken their positive effects, minimizing the potential negative impacts that could deter development. It also proposes the need to build an open world economy to expand the scope of development.

“The path of world economic development shows that openness brings progress and isolation leads to backwardness. To repeat the beggar-thy-neighbor approach will not help any country get out of the crisis or recession. No country could seek development on its own, hence the need to realize interconnected development by promoting common development of the world economy”, statement added.

In his closing remarks, President Xi Jinping, emphasised it is necessary to transform the G20 from a crisis-responding mechanism to a long-term governance mechanism, and expand its focus from short-term policy response to a combination of short-, medium- and long-term policy making.

“We resolve to support the continued focus by the G20 on the most prominent, pivotal and pressing challenges facing the world economy, enhance policy coordination, improve institutional building, and fully implement the outcomes, thus leading strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth of the world economy”, he submitted.