Indonesia has said it would look to steer the focus of the Group of 20 (G20), which it currently chairs, to its existing priorities and ruled out the possibility of including the discussion of the ongoing Ukraine crisis into the G20 agenda.

Indonesia’s G20 co-sherpa Dian Triansyah Djani said Jakarta would remain focused on its priorities, namely global health architecture, a sustainable energy transition and digital transformation, even though Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may further disrupt the global economy that was still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Our presidency is on track in implementing the commitments that were stated in the [G20] leaders’ declaration from the previous presidency, on top of our own priorities,” Dian told reported on Thursday.

He said each country’s delegations may raise their concerns on all issues, not only on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but reiterated that Indonesia did not want “to lose sight” of the G20’s founding mandate as a multilateral forum for economic cooperation.

In a statement published on Monday, the Civil Society 20 (C20), an official engagement group of the G20 comprising civil society organizations, called on Indonesia to play a more active role and invite G20 members to discuss conflict resolutions for the Russo-Ukrainian war in one of the G20 sessions.

Indonesia is currently holding the year-long presidency of the exclusive group of the world’s 20 biggest economies, which brings together not only the United States and some of its allies but also Russia and China.

The uncertainties caused by the war have pushed oil and other commodity prices higher, just as the global economy was slowly recovering from the pandemic.

Popular

The fragile promise of pluralism, religious freedom in Southeast Asia

Furniture exporters decry new quarantine rule

Coffee, gold push up inflation to 1.95 percent in April