Evaluation Note / Selin Arslanhan Memiş

1. The Chinese G20 Presidency ended with the Hangzhou Summit held on 3-4 September, 2016. It is important to asses the highlights of the global agenda as set by the Hangzhou Summit in view of recent events which include an increasing number of terror attacks and security issues as well as political developments such as Brexit and the US elections all the year round.   At the same time, it is important not to keep in mind that the framework agreed upon at the G20 Hangzhou Summit is a shared vision of the global agenda that was developed against the backdrop of recent global developments and in spite of the busy domestic agendas of individual countries participating in the summit.   All the messages conveyed by the Summit this year –that began with the Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speech and ended with the Hangzhou leaders communique- point to an effort to turn the G20 into a platform to address 21^st century challenges.

2. During the Chinese Presidency in 2016, the G20 took an important step towards reinventing itself. The need to develop a new approach for strong, balanced, inclusive and sustainable global economic growth was the  central theme of this year’s Summit.  In addition to issues such as financial market volitality and the low growth rate of international trade and investments, the central issue at the Summit was weak global growth.     Global growth  remains below growth  levels before the 2008 financial crisis.  While the G20 took successful steps to prevent further deepening of the global financial crisis from 2008 onwards, actions that are needed to drive global economic growth are different now. At this year’s Summit, the G20 was fully aware  that there was a need to adopt a new approach to accelerate global growth.  For this reason, G20  countries sent out a set of messages to spearhead global growth including a new strategy to address current global issues.

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