Tuesday, 19 March 2024
T20 Mumbai 2017

The G20 is the premier multilateral platform for global economic and financial issues. It has a rotating presidency, and this year, Germany is the president of the G20. In that role, it is hosting a number of meetings with government officials (G20), business leaders (B20) and experts from think tanks (T20).

The T20 is an official sub-forum of the G20 process, responsible for contributing ideas and research to the G20 on global economic issues.

Think-20 (T20) was first initiated by the Mexican presidency in 2012 and continued by subsequent G20 presidencies. It serves as an “ideas bank” for the G20 by organizing the analysis of global think tanks and high-level experts on relevant international economic issues. Think-20 recommendations are synthesized in policy briefs and presented to G20 working groups, ministerial committees and leaders summits to help the G20 deliver concrete policy measures.

The Kiel Institute for the World Economy and German Development Institute have been appointed by the German government as coordinators for the think tank activities for the year. The institutes hosted the T20 kick-off meeting on December 1-2, 2016 in Berlin with experts from more than 80 countries., and are scheduled to host the first-ever T20 Africa conference on February 1-3, 2017 and eventually the T20 Summit on May 29-31, 2017.

Gateway House has hosted T20 meetings during the 2015 Turkish presidency and during the 2016 Chinese presidency of the G20. The meetings brought together experts from think tanks working international economic governance and foreign economic policy issues, business leaders and relevant government officials from India and the G20 countries to Mumbai. For Gateway House, the meetings were the outcome of the focus on geoeconomics and on-going research on international economic relations and global financial architecture.

At G20 2017, Germany has announced Resilience, Sustainability and Responsibility as its core vision. This will cover global issues such as financial market regulation, fin-tech, trade and investment, digitization, healthcare, migration and agriculture. This meeting in Mumbai is an important indicator of intellectual partnership between German and Indian think tanks and an opportunity to bring up new ideas and deliver concrete policy suggestions that can help Germany achieve its vision for G20 in 2017.

Yonov Frederick Agah, Deputy Director General, World Trade Organization delivered the keynote address during the opening session. This keynote session was followed by a series of close door round-table discussions between distinguished invitees from think-tanks around the world.

13 February, 2017 | Monday

8.30 am – 9.30 am: Opening Session
Topic: Germany, India and the G20

Objective: Discuss Germany’s priorities for G20 and T20 in 2017 and India’s contributions to the process.

Keynote Address by Yonov Frederick Agah, Deputy Director General, World Trade Organisation.

9.45 am – 11.00 am: Roundtable 1
Topic: Global Financial Markets and Regulations

Objective: Develop specific policy recommendation that can help G20 design effective global financial regulations and build resilient financial markets.

11.10 am – 12.25 pm: Roundtable 2
Topic: Digital Economy

Objective: Develop specific policy recommendation that can help G20 design effective global policies for supporting the digital economy.

Session Partner:

Session partners2

12.30 pm – 1.30 pm – Lunch Break

1.35 pm – 2.45 pm: Roundtable 3
Topic: Green Economy

Objective: Develop specific policy recommendation that can help G20 design effective global policies for supporting the green economy.

Session Partner:Session partners 1

2.45 pm – 4.00 pm: Roundtable 4
Topic: Trade and investment

Objective: Develop specific policy recommendation that can help G20 design effective global policies for supporting trade and investment.

4.00 pm – 4.20 pm: Closing Session

G20Insight_Trade_Measuring-cross-border-trade

Abstract: Cross-border trade in services is increasingly the pre-eminent driver of growth for developed and developing countries alike. Service-related commitments are included in most of the new trade agreements.

Effective policy-design however, is dependent on collection and presentation of accurate data. Inter-agency task forces of multilateral organizations such as UN, WTO, IMF and OECD have designed a framework to capture cross-border trade in services but data classification by partner trading company, partner trading country and by modes-of-supply, remains a challenge. The G20 can plug this gap through comprehensive information-collection and sharing.

You can download the PDF version of  ‘Measuring cross-border trade in services by trading partner country and company’ on G20-Insights.

Akshay Mathur is the Director of Research and Fellow, Geoeconomic Studies at Gateway House.

Purvaja Modak is Researcher, Geoeconomic Studies and Assistant Manager, Research Office at Gateway House.

G20Insight_Climate_Decentralized-consumer-driven-model

Abstract: The transition from fossil-fuel based energy usage towards renewable energy sources needs to be accelerated1. The issue is at the developing country level, where a lack of funds and technology – both promised by international institutions but not delivered – exacerbates the problem. Where financing is available, very few “bankable” projects exist for global investment.

To hasten the transition, a new decentralized, consumer-based renewable energy approach must be adopted. Solar energy technology is particularly suited for this and can see early gains for climate change. The G20 can create policies to help develop products for consumers1 and facilitate global private capital and multilateral finance towards this goal.

You can download the PDF version of ‘A decentralized, consumer-driven model for the solar eco-system’ on G20-Insights.

Amit Bhandari is Fellow, Energy & Environment Studies, Gateway House.

Akshay Mathur is the Director of Research and Fellow, Geoeconomic Studies at Gateway House.

Purvaja Modak is Researcher, Geoeconomic Studies and Assistant Manager, Research Office at Gateway House.

Learn more about the G20

Germany assumed its G20 Presidency on 1 December 2016. Two think tanks (IfW and DIE) will lead the T20 outreach group in 2017.

T20 will hold debates and discussions supporting the Germany G20 vision “Resilience, Sustainability and Responsibility”, and provide related policy suggestions to G20 to help and ensure the 2017 G20 Hamburg Summit fully delivers and implements its developing policy measures and G20 growth agenda.

Learn more about Germany’s T20


2017 T20 Chairs

The Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)

The Kiel Institute is an international center for research in global economic affairs, economic policy consulting, and economic education. The Institute engages especially in creating solutions to urgent problems in global economic affairs. On basis of its research, the Institute advises decision-takers in policy, business, and society and informs the broader public about important developments in international economic policy.

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German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE)

The German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) is one of the leading think tanks for global development and international cooperation worldwide. It is located in the UN City of Bonn. DIE’s work is based on the interplay between Research, Policy Advice and Training. DIE is building bridges between theory and practice.

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2016’s Think20 (T20) Mumbai meeting took the topic of “Global Economic Governance″ and successfully brought together think tank experts from Turkey, China, India and Germany, business leaders from India and diplomatic representatives from the G20 countries to discuss issues concerning the G20.

Dr. Arvind Panagariya, Vice-Chairman of the NITI Aayog, delivered the keynote address during the keynote session.

In his speech, he comments on the significance of China’s G20 Presidency for 2016, discusses India’s role in the G20, and recalls some of the most challenging negotiations he was part of as G20 Sherpa. Full transcript

India’s first Think20 (T20) regional consultation on “Turkey, India and the G20″ brought together think tank experts from Turkey, China, India and Australia, business leaders from India and diplomatic representatives from the G20 countries to discuss issues concerning the G20.

Dr. Raghuram Rajan, Governor, Reserve Bank of India, delivered the keynote address at India’s first Think20 (T20) meeting organised by Gateway House with TEPAV, on the “Global Economy and Challenges for Multilateral Policies.”

In his 36-minute speech, he urged emerging markets like India to develop their own capacity to provide new ideas to the global financial system, “hold the pen” that will write a more inclusive agenda, and strengthen global multilateral institutions. Full transcript

Takeaways from the T20

We present an overview of these discussions, arranged in three categories for each session: Why is the issue important for the G20? What are India’s concerns on the subject? What were the key issues discussed at this meeting? Read the full report

About G20

G20, or Group of 20, was initiated in 1999 and consists of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Republic of Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union (EU).

Before the outbreak of global financial crisis in 2008, G20 meetings of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors were held to discuss international financial and monetary policies, reform of international financial institutions and world economic development. The first G20 Leaders’ Summit was held in 2008. The 12th G20 Leaders’ Summit will be held on 7–8 July 2017, Hangzhou, China.

Groups like the T20 will prepare policy recommendations for the G20 Summit over the course of the year.


G20 India Secretariat

The Government of India plays a very active role in the G20. The G20 India Secretariat has been placed within the Multilateral Relations Division, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance.

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 Useful links

All the information regarding the G20, international organisations and their role in the G20, recent reports, G20 Finance Ministries.

Read more

For Press enquiries, please contact outreach@gatewayhouse.in

For Speaker and schedule enquiries, please contact research.office@gatewayhouse.in

For Membership enquiries, please contact membership@gatewayhouse.in

T20 Mumbai is a closed-door, roundtable, track 1.5 discussion, invite-only conference.

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