South Korea is likely to host the next summit of the G20 countries, a group of the top twenty economies of the world, President Lee Myung-bak said."It is very highly likely that (south) Korea will be hosting the next G-20 meeting following this year's Pittsburgh meeting," President Lee said yesterday at the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think tank.
Lee, who would be the chair of the G-20 after the Pittsburgh Summit later this week, said though it hasn't been decided yet but "we expect sometime next year to be the host of the G-20. And once we do, by then when Korea is the host of G20 next year, hopefully we will be recovering from the current global economic crisis."
Though there will be new global issues by that time, Lee said: "As host of the G-20, Korea will have heavy responsibility to talk about these delicate issues, and not just talk about them but to come up with viable solutions to them."
The South Korean President said the G-20 format has been extremely successful and will remain important in dealing critical issues of global concern. "When Korea is the host of next year's G-20, I think that it is important for us as host to continue this momentum because the G-20 has been extremely successful in helping economies around the world recover from the current crisis," he said. "I think that point must be noted and also sustained, and I think this has been unprecedented historical case where we have the advanced economies together working with the new and emerging economies, and I think such format of cooperation must be sustained. As chair of the G-20 for next year, Korea will do its best to ensure that we continue with this momentum," he added.
He said, "Sometime in the latter half of next year, we will be engaging in enthusiastic discussions about what we are going to do post crisis, and I think we are also going to talk about a host of issues, including governance issues, for instance, which will include the IMF reform and other very important topics. And for all of these to be successful and effective and long lasting, international cooperation will be critically important."
"And also it's about really balanced growth, because the G-20 format brought together the leaders of the most advanced and new and emerging economies so that we can all try to escape and recover from the current global economic crisis," Lee said.
"But then again I stress once again the importance of balanced growth, because as we saw in this current crisis, a problem emanating from one country will inevitably have influence on other parts of the world," Lee said. The first G-20 summit, convened by the then US President, George Bush, was held in Washington last November, followed by the London Summit in April this year.
Pittsburgh is hosting the third G-20 summit on September 24 and 25.
The G4 (India, Japan, Brazil and Germany) favour expansion to six more permanent seats and four non-permanent seats. Two each of the new permanent members would be from Asia and Africa, and one each from Latin America and Europe. Most countries in the GA also favour expansion in both categories, according to a report on recent negotiations.
Still no specifics have been worked out as yet."This architecture was designed 60 years ago so it will not be easy to undo that architecture and build a new structure," said Puri "I would say that one has to be patient but one has to go on trying."
The dialogue on Security Council reform is taking place under the inter-governmental negotiations, started during the previous session of the GA, chaired by the Afghanistan envoy to the UN, Zahir Tanin.
