Australian Ambassador James Larsen stated that they are working with Turkey for a successful transfer of G20 presidency on December
ANKARA – TEPAV and the Australian Embassy co-organized a meeting titled “G20 2014 Growth Strategies: Improving the Business Environment” on Wednesday, 20 March 2014. The meeting moderated by Bozkurt Aran, Director of TEPAV's Center for Multilateral Trade Studies, focused on the 2014 growth strategy of the G20.
James Larsen, Australian Ambassador to Turkey pointed at the importance of the transfer of G20 Presidency from Australia to Turkey, and said that the Australian presidency was working with turkey in a number of ways to facilitate a smooth transfer process. Larsen stated that the close cooperation between the two countries facilitated stronger bilateral relations.
Touching upon the G20 agenda for 2014, Ambassador Larsen recalled the goals to increase global growth by 2 percentage points and enhance the resilience of global economy towards financial crises, as declared after the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting held in February in Sydney. To this end, Larsen stated, investments, employment, labor force participation, and trade had to be improved and the competitiveness and financial systems had to be strengthened. Larsen said that the next phase of preparations included the identification of concrete actions to take.
Larsen stressed that the G20 had to work to enhance living standards and business environment in all around the world and cited the importance of generating jobs, eliminating poverty, increasing the private sector’s role in growth and employment, and improving the resilience of the global economy against possible shocks.
Marina Wes, World Bank Turkey Office Lead Economist said that to ensure growth and development across emerging market economies was one of the chief goals for the global economy, whereas the expected tightening of global liquidity and the risk of middle income trap were hindering the prospects for economic growth in the emerging world. Addressing risk concerning doing business, Wes stated that current growth rates could not be taken for granted and that it was difficult to make a leap from middle- to high-income. Wes stressed that there was a long way to take concerning business environment reforms and that any progress on that account could both enable productivity gains and more inclusive growth, and stimulate foreign direct investments.
Mark Lewis, IMF Senior Resident Representative referred to the reasons underlying weak growth. Lewis drew attention to low level of investments on the demand side and the drops in productivity and employment on the supply side. He said that in the period ahead, emerging market economies in particular were to contribute less to global growth due to structural challenges. He pointed at the need for supplementing macroeconomic policies to back growth with structural reforms targeted to increase potential growth rates. Lewis in this context cited infrastructure investments, measures to improve capital productivity, labor market policies to create jobs and facilitate labor force participation, and commodity market reforms to promote productivity and innovation.
