G20 to meet in Melbourne in 2006
by xster Wednesday August 10, 2005 at 11:55 AM

Details are scant but a report in The Age (reproduced below) suggests that the G20 will meet in Melbourne next year sometime after the Commonwealth Games in March and before APEC meeting in Sydney in 2007.

The G20 official website provides no details of the meeting other than to confirm it will indeed be in Australia. The mainstream media on the whole seems to have not chosen it as a story worth mentioning. There may however be people within Melbourne who think the fact that a gang of finance ministers, central bankers and the head of the World Bank are meeting in their city is cause of some kind of non-official welcome of the kind the World Economic Forum received some years ago.

The G20 has previously met with raucous protests including Montreal, Canada in 2000 and Ottawa, Canada in 2001.

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The Age (Australia) writes Melbourne will host one of the world's most important economic forums next year when the G20 group of finance ministers visits for their annual meeting. Federal Treasurer Peter Costello told The Age that the Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors, representing 19 nations and the European Union, will gather in Melbourne after this year's meeting in Beijing. The G20 meeting will follow the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, but will pre-date a meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum leaders' summit in Sydney in 2007.

Melbourne will host one of the world's most important economic forums next year when the G20 group of finance ministers visits for their annual meeting.

Federal Treasurer Peter Costello told The Age that the Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors, representing 19 nations and the European Union, will gather in Melbourne after this year's meeting in Beijing. The G20 meeting will follow the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, but will pre-date a meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum leaders' summit in Sydney in 2007.

Mr Costello would not comment on how the G20 meeting would affect preparations for the Games, or vice versa. However, security will be a concern.

Mr Costello and Reserve Bank chairman Ian Macfarlane will be joined by counterparts from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, Britain and the United States. Paul Wolfowitz, the head of the World Bank, will also attend.

The G20 first met in 1999 on the recommendation of G7 finance ministers. The group of seven rich nations, made up of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain and the US, has held annual meetings since 1986. It recommended a broader forum, to provide greater credibility in the developing world. As a result of this broader focus, G20 recommendations often provide compromise alternatives to policy objectives of rich nations.

The forum has given China and India opportunities to assert their emergent economic influence.

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