G20 great opportunity for India to showcase its strengths: Goyal

Washington: The next G20 summit presents a "great opportunity" for India to showcase many of its strengths and provide leadership to several challenges the world is facing, Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal has said.

Goyal is in the US on an official visit. He co-chaired the India-US Trade Policy Forum meeting with US Trade Representative Katherine Tai on Wednesday.

“The G-20 is going to be a very exciting opportunity for India to provide leadership to many of the challenges before the world. It is going to be a great opportunity for us to showcase the many strengths of India,” he told reporters at a news conference here on Wednesday.

India formally assumed the G20 Presidency on December 1. The next G20 Leaders’ Summit at the level of Heads of State/Government is scheduled to be held on September 9 and 10 in New Delhi.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said India will work to further promote oneness, inspired by the theme of “One Earth, One Family, One Future” and listed terrorism, climate change and the pandemic as the greatest challenges that can be best fought together.

In an article that appeared in several newspapers and was posted on his website, Prime Minister Modi said India’s G20 priorities will be shaped in consultation with not just its G20 partners, but also its fellow travellers in the global South, whose voice often goes unheard.

The G20 or Group of 20 is an intergovernmental forum of the world’s major developed and developing economies.

It comprises Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the UK, the US and the European Union (EU).

Together, they account for over 80 per cent of the global Gross Domestic Product, 75 per cent of international trade and two-thirds of the world population.

Goyal said Modi is considered as one of the "tallest leaders" of the world and believes in actions and solutions.

“If you recall, when (former US ) Vice President Al Gore had come out with the inconvenient truth, Prime Minister Modi had come out with his own treatise on convenient action, because he's a person who believes in action. All his life, he has been a person who believed in solutions,” he said.

Terming India’s G20 Presidency a “very big deal”, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said India intends to use its presidency for the benefit of the international community.

Addressing the members of the Indian diaspora in Vienna this month, Jaishankar said: "We are going to make sure that the diversity of every region, every culture, every local cuisine, and local products will be on display to the world." "In a sense, I would say you can think of it as a marketing of India to the world,” he said.