Coronavirus crisis: G-20 meeting of health, finance ministers soon

However, a senior government official said on condition of anonymity that the meeting could be held in a matter of few weeks, rather than months

The health and finance ministers of G20 (Group of Twenty) nations are expected to attend a "virtual" meeting soon to discuss ways to tackle the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.

The logistics of this meeting are still being finalised, but it could be held within weeks, Business Standard has learnt.

"We commit to work with health ministers to address and mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and look forward to a joint meeting of finance and health ministers in the coming months," said the G20 Covid-19 Global Action Plan, which was released on Thursday.

The action plan has been co-released by finance ministers of G20 nations, including India's Nirmala Sitharaman.

However, a senior government official said that the meeting could be held in some weeks, rather than months.

According to the action plan, the G20 nations support a suspension of debt payments by the poorest nations for loans received from multilateral institutions like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and others.

"We support a time-bound suspension of debt service payments for the poorest countries that request forbearance. We ask multilateral development banks to further explore the options for suspension of debt service payments over the suspension period, while maintaining their current rating and low cost of funding. We call on creditors to continue to closely coordinate in the implementation phase of this initiative," the action plan stated.

According to the action report, the G20 nations committed to allocate all necessary and available resources to battle the pandemic.

The action report stated that emergency trade measures designed to tackle Covid-19, if deemed necessary, must be targeted, proportionate, transparent, and temporary.

"We welcome the decisions by central banks to support global financial stability and resilience, including the deployment and expansion of bilateral swap lines and the introduction of repo facilities for sovereign debt, in line with their mandates," it said.

"We commit to review, together with G20 health ministers, the forthcoming report by the World Health Organization and relevant organisations, on longer term pandemic preparedness gaps, to support our assessment of the G20 presidency’s proposed pandemic preparedness global initiative. We commit to build on G20 Infrastructure efforts to increase the resilience of infrastructure against risks, including from pandemics," the report stated.

The G20 nations also committed to continue to put in place a comprehensive package of monetary and regulatory policy measures to support economic and financial stability, and together with fiscal response, ensure an appropriate overall degree of macroeconomic policy support.