The G20 meeting in Venice, Italy was the first in-person ministerial meeting since the start of the pandemic.
The decisions at the summit include the approval of new rules aimed at stopping the transfer of profits by multinational corporations to regions with low taxes. This enables G20 leaders to finally approve a new global minimum corporate tax rate of 15% at the Rome summit in October, a move that could generate hundreds of billions of dollars for government treasuries strained by the COVID-19 crisis.
The final communiqué said the global economic outlook improved after the G20 talks in April, thanks to the deployment of vaccines and economic support packages, but acknowledged its fragility in the face of virus variants such as the fast-spreading Delta.
“The recovery is characterized by large differences between countries and within countries and remains at risk of declining, in particular due to the spread of new variants of the COVID-19 virus and different rates of vaccination,” the report said.
While the G20 countries have pledged to use all policy tools to tackle COVID-19, the Italian organizers of the meeting said that an agreement was also reached to avoid introducing new restrictions on people.
“We all agree that we should avoid re-imposing any restrictions on the movement of citizens and the way people live,” said Italian Economy Minister Daniele Franco, whose country holds the G20 presidency until December.
The communiqué, while emphasizing support for a “fair global exchange” of vaccines, does not propose concrete measures, but simply recognizes a $ 50 billion recommendation to fund new vaccines from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Health Organization and the World Trade Organization.
Italy said the G20 will return to funding vaccines for poor countries ahead of the Rome summit in October.
“We must agree on a process to allow everyone on the planet to have access to vaccines. If we don’t, the IMF predicts that the global economy will lose $ 9 trillion,” said religious development organization Jubilee USA Network.
She was referring to the IMF’s forecast that international collaboration on COVID-19 vaccines could accelerate the global economic recovery and add $ 9 trillion to global income by 2025.
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