G20 leaders seek to greatly help poorest nations
The twin crises of the pandemic and an uneven, uncertain global recovery dominated the first day of a two-day summit beneath the chairmanship of Saudi Arabia, which hands off the rotating presidency of the G20 to Italy next month.
Leaders of the 20 biggest economies on Saturday vowed to ensure a good distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, drugs and lab tests around the world and conduct what was needed to support poorer countries struggling to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.
"We will spare no effort to ensure their cost-effective and equitable gain access to for all people, consistent with customers’ commitments to incentivise innovation," the leaders explained in a draft G20 communique seen by Reuters. "We recognise the role of comprehensive immunization as a global public good."
The COVID-19 pandemic, which has thrown the global economy right into a deep recession this year, and efforts needed to underpin an monetary rebound in 2021, were at the top of the agenda.
"We must do the job to create the circumstances for affordable and equitable access to this equipment for all peoples," Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz said in his opening remarks.
G20 leaders are worried that the pandemic might further deepen global divisions between your rich and the poor.
"We need to avoid at all costs a situation of a two-speed community where sole the richer can protect themselves against the virus and restart normal lives," French President Emmanuel Macron told the summit.
To do that, the European Union urged G20 leaders quickly to place more money right into a global job for vaccines, testing and therapeutics - called Usage of COVID-19 Tools (Action) Accelerator - and its own COVAX center to distribute vaccines.
"At the G20 Summit I needed $4.5 billion to be committed to ACT Accelerator by the finish of 2020, for procurement & delivery of COVID-19 tests, remedies and vaccines everywhere," European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen explained on Twitter.
"We need to exhibit global solidarity," she said.
Germany was contributing a lot more than 500 million euros ($592.65 million) to the effort, Chancellor Angela Merkel told the G20, urging other countries to do their part, regarding to a text of her remarks.
Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to provide Russia's Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine to other countries and said Moscow was also preparing a second and third vaccine.
China, where the pandemic originated this past year, also offered to cooperate on vaccines. China has got five home-grown prospects for a vaccine going through the previous phase of trials.
"China is willing to strengthen cooperation with different countries in the research and development, development, and distribution of vaccines," President Xi Jinping told the G20 Summit.
"We will ... offer support and help to various other developing countries, and work hard to create vaccines a public great that citizens of all countries can use and may afford," he said.
US President Donald Trump, who shed the US presidential election but has refused to concede to former Vice President Joe Biden, addressed G20 leaders briefly before going golfing. He reviewed the necessity to work together to revive economic growth, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany explained in an overview released later on Saturday.
She made no mention of any US pledge to support the global vaccine distribution work. One European origin said Trump's remarks had been centered on what he described as an unprecedented US recovery and the US drive to build up its own vaccines.
