T20 to help produce new global vitality

Zhang Yuyan, director of the Institute of World Economics and Politics, CASS. [Photo provided to China Daily]

China, which will play host to the G20 Summit scheduled for Sept 4-5 in Hangzhou, has worked hard to prepare for the event, and along with other concerned parties, enable the G20 to promote global economic growth, improve financial governance worldwide, advance international trade and investment, and implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Think tanks and academia from the G20 member countries and others make an important contribution to the G20 dialogue via the T20, and one of the last major events in the run-up to the G20 Summit is the T20 Summit in Beijing on Friday and Saturday.

Its mission is to provide support for global economic development and improved international governance via academic exchanges and policy discussions.

This year's T20 Summit will hold a wide range of discussions around the theme of "building new global relations－new dynamics, new vitality and new prospects", which dovetails perfectly with that of the upcoming 2016 G20 Summit－"innovative, invigorated, interconnected and inclusive".

As the world economic recovery is still in a low gear and facing a variety of risks, the International Monetary Fund has recently cut its global economic growth forecasts to 3.1 percent for 2016 and 3.4 percent in 2017.

One of the efforts to address the issue, the Beijing T20 Summit in cooperation with the Ministry of Science and Technology has also added a new forum on innovation to seek new growth spots in the world economy.

The disharmony between the complex situations worldwide and the current global systems of governance and capacity has contributed to the sluggish world economy that also correlates with its anemic growth.

A financial expert delivers a speech at one of this year's T20 forums in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, in January. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Against such a backdrop, the G20 needs to advance reforms of the global governance mechanism, improve the systems of international trade, investment and financial governance, and help numerous countries increase their capacities to tackle global challenges, thereby giving the global economy a new lease of life.

As a major platform for international economic cooperation, the G20 not only focuses on the growth of its member economies, but along with other countries, tries to promote the development and prosperity of the global economy.

Thus experts at the T20 Summit will discuss such issues as how the G20 can play a leading role in advancing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, increase South-South and South-North cooperation under the G20 framework, and strengthen coordination between the G20 and other international mechanisms, in a bid to make G20 a real platform for global governance and sustainable development of the world economy.

Experts at this year's T20 Summit will share insights into such issues and have in-depth discussions to offer policy recommendations to the upcoming G20 and provide solutions to various problems facing the world.

The country holding the annual G20 presidency names a think tank within its territory to be responsible for the T20 events throughout that year.

The Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences is the leading chair named by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for this year's T20 events.

Together with the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies and the Chongyang Institute for financial Studies of Renmin University of China, the Institute of World Economics has co-chaired nine meetings in China, the United States, Peru, Germany, Switzerland and India since taking the chair in November 2015.

After discussions on various issues listed on this year's G20 agenda, the previous fruitful sessions have generated rich research achievements that will be discussed at the upcoming summit, which marks the end of this year's T20 series of events.

The author is a senior fellow and director of the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.