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Indonesia keeps G20 intact in increasingly fragmented world, says Sri Mulyani
With geopolitical conflicts and global economic turbulence, Indonesia’s Group of Twenty (G20) Presidency is hardly standing on steady ground. Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, who leads the Finance Track, shares with The Jakarta Post the twists and turns of navigating the forum this year and how it eventually delivers.
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Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati (Finance Ministry/-)
With geopolitical conflicts and global economic turbulence, Indonesia’s Group of Twenty (G20) Presidency is hardly standing on steady ground. Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, who leads the Finance Track, shares with The Jakarta Post the twists and turns of navigating the forum this year and how it eventually delivers.
Question: How do you define success in G20 leadership?
Answer: At the very beginning, the design for the G20 presidency for Indonesia was to carry the theme “Recover Together, Recover Stronger”. The priority issue that we wanted to discuss was the recovery of the economy and scarring effects from the pandemic. And then the world changed very dramatically in early 2022 because of the war in Ukraine. It is changing the whole dynamic.
In the past four decades, the world is actually dictated by [the principle] that we can prosper together. That's why trade and investment are actually based on the belief that: if I buy something from you, I gain something; you gain something. Many countries, including China, have prospered based on this [principle]. Each country is connected.
Now it's totally different. What you're seeing is more like a zero-sum game. If somebody gains, it will be at the cost of somebody else. As an economist, [I see] this is really alarming.
A divided global economy has started since [the tenure of] the US [former] president Donald Trump. He felt that the US was carrying the burden for the whole world. So, when everybody gained, the US had to pay. That's why when [he said] America first, make America great again, this could only be done at the cost that the world needs to suffer.
