Statement by Deputy Representative Dmitry Chumakov during the briefing by the G-20 Sherpa of Italy on the priorities of the G-20
Distinguished President of the General Assembly,
Distinguished G20 Sherpa of Italy, Ambassador,
The Russian Federation welcomes the Italian chairmanship in the Group of 20. We support its slogan, implying a symbiosis of the interests of people, the prosperity of societies and protection of the Planet. It will contribute to the agreed UN framework of sustainable development – the 2030 Agenda.
We attach particular importance to maintaining the spirit of openness and multilateral cooperation in the Group building upon the successes of the last year in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic and its economic consequences. Measures taken by the G20, such as a financial stimulus package amounting to more than USD 12 trillion, maintaining channels of open international trade, facilitating debt burden of developing countries, deploying vaccines and medicines, all of them played an important role in tackling the challenges of the coronavirus infection and helped to save lives and jobs.
We share the G20 approach that immunization must be a global public domain distributed on the basis of universal and equitable access. Russia was the first to develop and register the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, which has proven its effectiveness. We remain open to interaction with all interested countries in their production and distribution in order to protect our people, to return the possibility of personal communication.
Everyone agrees about how critical it is to return back on track for sustainable development and eradication of poverty, so that we are able to resume our aspiration towards global economic growth - one of the key objectives for the Group coordination. But we should always keep in mind that this growth must be sustainable in its all aspects, balanced and inclusive. Having said that I reconfirm that we support the use of advanced green and digital technologies and circular economy models. Nevertheless, we consider it counterproductive to impose any specific one-sided scenario of energy transition as the ultimate truth and the solely possible prescription. We are convinced that fighting climate change – if you want it to become really global - must be a uniting agenda of inclusive nature, not becoming an area of unfair competition and a pretext for artificial protectionist barriers in trade, or even a brake on the sustainable development of countries.
We welcome the continuous interest by the Group in the sustainable functioning of the world economic system, maintaining open and equitable trade, unhindered flow of investments and technologies on a depoliticized basis, with the rejection of the flawed policy of trade wars and sanctions.
Implications of the pandemic have put digital agenda high in the priority list. We will be happy to contribute to the G20 practical results in defining a unified international approach to the taxation of global digital companies, creating "smart cities", intelligent transport systems, development of digital infrastructure and digital trade (especially, on the topic on consumer protection), as well as to sending the right signals to the United Nations about the need to further elaborate the rules, norms and principles of responsible state behavior in the use of ICT.
All in all, we would like to wish the Italian Chairmanship every success in this responsible endeavor. Rest assured of the support from our country, willingness to work together to reach strong results at the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Rome 30-31 October this year in order to strengthen our societies and economies, to return the world economy back on a track of sustainable and inclusive growth.
I thank you for your attention.
