Advancing US-India relations priority at G20: US Treasury Secretary

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New Delhi, India: The United States Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, said the United States’ sees advancing the US-India relations as an important goal during the G20 Leaders’ Summit, which takes place Sept. 9 and 10, 2023, in Delhi. She also lauded New Delhi’s leadership of the organization.

Addressing White House reporters, at The Park Hotel in New Delhi on September 8, 2023, Yellen who is in the nation’s capital to participate in the Summit said, “Continuing to advance the US-India relationship will be a priority this week. We highly value our bilateral relationship with India. In fact, this is my fourth time in India over the last year, making it the country I visited most frequently as Treasury Secretary.”

Noting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s June 22 visit to Washington, Yellen added, “The US is home to the largest Indian diaspora outside of Asia, and is India’s largest export market, expanding our bilateral economic ties and our cooperation on global challenges is crucially important to us.”

With regard to the absence of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, she said, “I think it’s important to emphasize that the G20 is a prime contributor to the solution of global challenges. We see it as the premier organization, and on a global basis is taking on critical challenges facing the global economy and particularly the Global South.”

She further added, “And I believe the G20 in spite of obvious problems due to Russia’s war against Ukraine, and Russia’s general absence from G20 initiatives – has been extremely effective, and especially under India’s leadership.”

On whether the G20 will be able to reach an agreement on the communique, Yellen noted that “I understand that this is challenging to craft such language, but I know the negotiators are discussing it and working hard to do so and we stand ready certainly to work with India to try to craft a communique successfully to address this concern.”

Appreciating India’s leadership efforts in providing relief to countries on international debt “partly” due to the impact of war in Ukraine, and with “the high interest rate environment” she said, “I begin to believe we’re beginning to make significant progress there. So, I do see the G20 as a very effective forum. We appreciate India’s leadership. We look forward ourselves to hosting the G20 in 2026.”

Pointing out that the US goals for the G20 aligns closely with those of India, Yellen went on to say, “We’ve tackled very important challenges. As I mentioned, I think we’ve had considerable success in changing the way the entire multilateral development system is operating, increasing its mission to take on variety of global challenges, ranging from better preparedness for future pandemics.” adding they have formed a new task force comprising Finance and Health Ministers, initiated a pandemic fund within the World Bank and committed to addressing worldwide challenge including climate change and poverty reduction.

She said both US and India are “Committed to supporting emerging markets in developing countries,” and highlighted the ongoing work on developing the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs). “One year since my call to action to [MDBs] we have worked with a growing coalition of partners to make significant progress forms related to the World Bank’s mission and vision incentives, operational model, and financing capacity.”

“We are glad to have Ajay Banga [World Bank President] as our partner in this work” adding she looks forward to a greater collaboration across the MDB system to increase access to climate finance.

Stressing that there has been significant progress in expanding the financial capacity of MDBs, Yellen added, “Of course, the MDBs could unlock an additional $200 billion over the next decade. Those are crucial additional resources for reducing poverty, advancing global health security, and combating climate change.”