SAUDI ARABIA SAYS G20 SUMMIT TO BE HELD VIRTUALLY AMID CORONAVIRUS

Mon 28 September 2020:

The G20 leaders’ summit will be held online on November 21-22 rather than in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia said in a statement on Monday. 

The pandemic has forced all the group’s meetings to be held by videoconference since March.

In that month, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz chaired an emergency virtual summit of leaders to discuss a global response to the crisis which has ravaged global economies.

The meeting will be chaired by Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and the focus will be on “protecting lives and restoring growth, by addressing vulnerabilities uncovered during the pandemic and by laying down the foundations for a better future.” 

In a bid to safeguard the global economy from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, the G20 countries have also injected $11 trillion (€9.5 trillion).

The group has launched a debt suspension initiative for the least developed countries “that would allow beneficiary countries to defer $14 billion in debt payments due this year and use these amounts instead for financing their health systems and social programs,” the statement said.   

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