G20 summit good opportunity for China, other members: expert

BRUSSELS - The G20 summit in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou will be an opportunity for China to promote its own development model and to push the G20 members to adopt a joint approach towards infrastructure finance, a foreign policy expert told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Putting "interconnectivity" as one of the priorities for its presidency of G20 reflects China's approach to development policy, said Balazs Ujvari, research fellow at the Egmont Royal Institute for International Relations.

"It builds on Beijing's recent successes in realizing rapid growth by focusing on physical infrastructure development as a motor for sustained economic growth," he said.

China has mobilized significant efforts to take on a more active role in international development policy, including through the Belt and Road Initiative and the creation of the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank, the expert noted.

"There are two main initiatives at the moment in place that China uses to directly or indirectly contribute to the economic recovery of the European Union," Ujvari said, citing the Belt and Road Initiative which aims to increase connectivity between China and Europe through Central Asia, and the "16+1" framework which aims to help finance infrastructure and energy projects in Central-Eastern Europe.

To harmonize efforts in infrastructure improvement, the expert expected the upcoming G20 summit will come up with initiatives and measures to build bridges between the recently created multilateral development banks and the traditional financial institutions.

"The only way to address the enormous infrastructure gap around the world, particularly in Asia and Africa, is to enhance the coherence of these existing multilateral development institutions," he stressed.

Last but not least, the expert said China will also be pushing for a harmonious relationship between economic growth, society and the environment during its presidency of the G20.

Since the global financial crisis buffeted the United States and Europe in 2008, the global economic landscape has gone through significant changes.

However, the global economic governance mechanism is not in line with the economic realities, which makes additional reforms necessary, Ujvari pointed out.

Taking the global economic performance between 2010 and 2015 for instance, 56 percent of the global economy measured in purchasing power parity is represented by developing countries, but they only have 42 percent of the voting power at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the expert added.