Saudi Arabia makes great progress on G20 agenda despite COVID-19 outbreak: Alkholifey

Saudi Arabia made progress on the policy making front, solutions development as well as initiatives, in line with the theme of Saudi Arabia’s G20 Presidency, ‘Realizing Opportunities of the 21st Century For All’, state news agency SPA reported, citing Ahmed Alkholifey, Governor of Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA).

“Such progress was reached, though the meetings held by the finance ministers and the central bank governors, focusing on means to mitigate health, social and economic repercussions of COVID-19 as a priority,” Alkholifey said.

The G20 made enhancing cross-border payments a priority during Saudi Arabia’s presidency, seeking faster, cheaper, transparent and more inclusive cross-border payment services, including remittances.

Additionally, the Saudi G20 Presidency and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub launched the G20 TechSprint Initiative to highlight the potential for new technologies and to resolve regulatory compliance (RegTech) and supervision (SupTech) challenges. The BIS Innovation Hub also seeks to identify problems in regulatory reporting, analytics, and monitoring and supervision, in addition to developing innovative technological solutions.

The Saudi G20 presidency, in cooperation with other international organizations, discussed the best means to develop an advanced digital connectivity infrastructure, in addition to issuing several reports and studies in this regard, top of which was the G20 High-Level Policy Guidelines on Digital Financial Inclusion for Youth, Women and SMEs, addressing the challenges facing these categories.

Saudi Arabia, in its presidency of the G20 summit, managed to list the remaining challenges of the London Inter-bank Offered Rate (LIBOR) transition.

The G20 played an instrumental role in addressing the global financial crisis, putting forward reforms fostering growth and development, and shaping collective approaches on issues requiring international cooperation.