G20 is the premier platform for international economic cooperation. G20 was born out of the necessity to develop joint responses against challenges brought by economic crises of 1997, and 1998. First meeting of G20 countries was held in 1999 at the level of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors. G20 countries are as follows:

Europe: Turkey, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Russian Federation, and EU

America: USA, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil

Asia-Pacific: China, India, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Australia

Africa: South Africa

Middle East: Saudi Arabia

G20 represents 90% of global economy, 80% of world trade and 2/3 of world population. It brought together advanced and emerging economies around the same table. As such, G20 platform plays a crucial role in developing comprehensive responses to several challenges the world economy has faced. In 2008, G20 Leaders had their first meeting amid the global financial crisis.

G20’s core agenda is to achieve strong, sustainable and balanced global growth and to create quality jobs. To this end, G20 has taken up not only financial issues but also development, energy, employment, anticorruption and trade in order to assist reform of the global financial architecture and economic structure.

Chair of G20 for 2020 is Saudi Arabia. The theme of the Saudi Arabian Presidency is “Realizing Opportunities of the 21st Century for All” along with three complementary priorities: empowering people, safeguarding the planet and shaping new frontiers.

G20 Presidency will be assumed by Italy in 2021 and by India in 2022.

Turkey and G20

Turkey attaches high importance to G20 as a forum bringing together advanced and emerging economies. Therefore, it actively supports to further develop G20 agenda.

Turkey was G20 Chair in 2015 and hosted Leaders’ Summit in Antalya on 15-16 November 2015. Turkish G20 Presidency aimed to focus on developing more inclusive global growth, enhancing investments, and effectively implementing previous commitments. Therefore, Turkey defined its G20 Presidency priorities with three I’s, namely Inclusiveness, Investment, and Implementation.

During Turkish G20 Presidency, G20 agreed on a target to reduce youth unemployment by 15% by 2025, adopted a set of policy recommendations to reduce inequalities and established Women 20 as a full-fledged engagement group to promote gender inclusive economic growth. These actions contributed to create an inclusive economic growth within G20 members. Turkish G20 Presidency also focused to take steps towards creating an inclusive economic growth across the world. To this end, G20 Leaders adopted a framework in Antalya to strengthen the dialogue between G20 and low income developing countries. Furthermore, Turkish Presidency placed development issues at the heart of its G20 agenda and concrete actions were agreed by G20 Leaders on food security, role of private sector in development and remittances. Turkey also focused to assist SMEs particularly in terms of enhancing their access to finance and better integration to global value chains.

Turkish G20 Presidency brought to the agenda of the Leaders issues related to global peace and security as these issues are highly related to achieve sustainable and inclusive economic growth. Therefore, G20 Leaders discussed fight against terrorism and refugee crises in Antalya. First time in G20 history, Leaders agreed on a strong statement on fight against terrorism as well as underscored the importance of solidarity and effective cooperation to tackle the refugee crisis.