After an online meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors a day earlier. G20 quoted that “We support a time-bound suspension of debt service payments for the poorest countries that request forbearance,”
The ministers came endorsed a plan in order to combat COVID-19 including the suspension of debt service payments for the world’s poorest countries till the end of 2020.
It was also decided by the ministers that they shall be helping the poor sectors of the economy who were hardly hit the COVID-19 such as the medium and small enterprises along with Individuals
The meeting was attended by our Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who introduced the measures taken by the Indian Government such as global cooperation, including the relief package for the most affected sections and liquidity measures taken by the Reserve Bank of India.
India is the co-chair of the framework group of the plan who drew essential components to it. The plan calls for all bilateral official creditors to participate in the initiative, consistent with their national laws and internal procedures. The grouping also calls for private creditors and multilateral development banks to participate in comparable terms.
The finance ministers backed adoption and swift implementation of a strong financial response –amounting to $200 billion – to help countries in need and to uphold global financial stability and debt vulnerabilities in low-income countries due to the pandemic.
The Action Plan said, “We commit to providing substantial support to businesses, especially small medium-sized enterprises, and households most affected by this crisis, to minimise the pain of the temporary shock and ensure that disruption does not cause longterm damage to the global economy,”.