The third Finance Minister Central Bank Governor (FMCBG)‘s meeting under India’s presidency may end with the issuance of a communiqué as efforts are on to evolve a consensus on all outstanding issues, Finance Ministry officials indicated on Thursday.

The third FMCBG meeting is scheduled to take place on July 17–18 in Gandhi Nagar, preceded by a meeting of G20 Finance and Central Bank Deputies (FCBD) on July 14–15. While FMCBG will be co-chaired by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das, FCBD will be co-chaired by Economic Affairs Secretary Ajay Seth and RBI Deputy Governor Michael D Patra.

Last meeting

This will be the last meeting of the FMCBG before the leadership summit in September. The first meeting of the FMCBG, held in February in Bengaluru, failed to adopt a communiqué as Russia and China did not agree on a paragraph condemning the Ukraine war. Rather, the meeting ended with the issuance of the G20 Chair’s summary and Outcome document, which gave an insight into what was agreed upon and a roadmap for the future. The second meeting took place in the US.

Efforts are now afoot to evolve a consensus. Addressing the media at Gandhi Nagar, Seth said that the role of the presidency is to lead the effort to build global consensus. He emphasised that on all items of the core agenda before the Ministers and Governors, common ground was found.

Different stances

“One particular issue on which common ground could not be found was the impact of the war between Russia and Ukraine on the global economy. Two of the member countries had different stances on that particular observation. Now these issues will be discussed not just in finance tracks but in other tracks also and here too they will be discussed over the course of the next five days,” he said, giving an indication about the issuance of the communiqué rather than the chair’s summary.

The meeting will see the participation of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors of G20 members, guest countries, and heads of International Organisations. In total, there will be 520 participants across 66 delegations attending the meeting, Seth said.

The meeting will be organised into five thematic sessions covering the global economy and global health, Sustainable Finance and Infrastructure, International Financial Architecture, International Taxation, and Financial Sector and Financial Inclusion.

The key deliverables that will be presented to the Ministers and Governors include Volume 1 of a Report of the G20 Independent Expert Group on Strengthening MDBs; progress in the debt treatment for countries under the Common Framework; a guidance note for developing a globally coordinated framework for the regulation and supervision of crypto-assets; recommendations on Advancing Financial Inclusion and Productivity Gains through Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) to achieve financial inclusion of the last mile; and Principles for Financing Cities of Tomorrow, among others.

On the sidelines of the meeting, there will be an Infrastructure Investors’ Dialogue on ‘Leveraging Funding and Financing Mechanisms and Approaches for the Cities of Tomorrow’, a High-Level Tax Symposium on ‘Combatting Tax Evasion, Corruption, and Money Laundering’, a Roundtable Discussion on Crypto Assets, a Roundtable on the Report of the G20 Expert Group on Strengthening MDBs, and Workshops on ‘Interlinking Fast Payment Systems (FPS)’ and ‘Achieving Growth-Friendly Climate Action and Financing for Emerging and Developing Economies’.