Australia’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, has joined world leaders in pledging $7.5 trillion to recover the global economy. The coronacrisis is only the “tip of the iceberg”, the PM said during the teleconference, which took place at Parliament House in Canberra.
PM Morrison joined other members of the G20 in a video link-up overnight Friday. The summit comes as the Australian cabinet prepares to convene on Friday morning to approve rent and tax relief measures the Australian businesses, AAP reports.
In a communique, G20 leaders including PM Morrison described the COVID pandemic as “a powerful reminder of our interconnectedness and vulnerabilities”.
“Combating this pandemic calls for a transparent, robust, coordinated, large-scale and science-based global response in a spirit of solidarity,” documents reads.
G20 summit aimed at helping the global economy to recover from COVID crisis
This year, Saudi Arabia is chairing the forum of the G20 leaders. Due to coronacrisis, the traditional face-to-face meeting was transformed into the teleconference. The Australian first minister took part in an online meeting from Parliament House in Canberra.
Traditionally, G20 finance, health and trade ministers are set to meet in coming weeks to develop specific action plans to deal with the economic and health impacts.
UN chief Antonio Guterres told the leaders they needed a war-time plan.
“The next 100,000 happened in just 12 days. The third took four days. The fourth, just one and a half. This is exponential growth and only the tip of the iceberg,” he said meaning the new COVID cases.
Hailing the G20 summit, the International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva asked the world leaders for their backing to double the fund’s $US50 billion emergency financing capacity. According to Gergieva, vulnerable households, businesses, people need to be targeted financial support to stay afloat and get back to work quickly.
