Business leaders from the G20 group of developed and major emerging economies have asked their governments to kickstart financial reforms, lift barriers to trade and movement of capital and human resources and focus on infrastructure to lift growth in the member countries by 2 per cent over the next five years.

“G20 countries must commit collectively to implement unilateral structural reforms that boost employment and prospects for diversified and sustained growth – more trade, better infrastructure, human capital, finance and transparency,” said Richard Goyder, B20 Australia chair, while presenting a set of 20 “mutually reinforcing recommendations” to the G20.

Key areas

G20 trade ministers are scheduled to meet in Sydney tomorrow, in a run up to the G20 heads of government summit in November this year.

Goyder said the B20 – consisting of business leaders from the G20 nations – had focused identifying roadblocks to growth in five key areas – trade, infrastructure, finance, human capital and transparency (anti corruption measures).

“These reforms are doable,” Goyder stressed. If the G20 nations, which account for 85 per cent of the world’s output and more than three quarters of global trade, adopt the suggested measures, it would result in the addition of $2 trillion in real terms and create millions of new jobs.

Tackling the infrastructure deficit is essential to achieve this, the report noted. While Australia’s treasurer (finance minister) Joe Hockey said that governments everywhere have simply “run out of money” to invest, the B20 report noted that governments needed to focus on prioritizing and developing a list of infrastructure projects which are bankable and can utilize the private sector’s funds and expertise.

Best practices

They also urged the G20 to set up a “global infrastructure hub” to disseminate best practices in developing pipelines of investment-ready infrastructure projects the private sector can invest in.

Noting that if corruption were an industry, it would be the world’s third largest, the B20 report also urged governments to incentivise businesses to “act responsibly” and reduce the supply side of corruption, while enforcing existing laws more effectively and penalizing corruption in public office in order to curb the demand for corruption.

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