Russian Finance Ministry delegates attendance at G20 Finance meeting to department director

MOSCOW. July 19 (Interfax) - The Russian Finance Ministry was represented by Director of the Department of International Financial Relations Pavel Snisorenko at the regular meeting of the G20 for Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors, which took place on July 17-18 in Gandhinagar, India, the Ministry said.

The Russian delegation attended the meeting in person.

Last year, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov spoke at similar meetings, In April, he attended remotely (the meeting itself was held in Washington, and during the Russian minister's presentation, his American colleague Janet Yellen and ECB Chairman Christine Lagarde left the hall), and in November, in person. The autumn meeting was held in Bali and was combined with a meeting of health ministers.

The main topics of discussions at this financial G20 were the current situation in the global economy and growth prospects, tools for achieving debt sustainability in vulnerable countries, food and energy security issues, the mobilization of financial resources to combat climate change, strengthening multilateral development banks, and reforming international taxation, the Finance Ministry said.

The G20 countries noted the significant scale of the accumulated problems: persistently high inflation and a widespread increase in the cost of living, combined with significantly increased risk of debt vulnerabilities against the background of rate hikes by central banks in developed countries.

"Despite the encouraging signals for the world economy at the beginning of the year, a scenario is currently being realized when interest rates will be high for a long time, which in turn reduces both short-term and long-term economic growth prospects," Snisorenko said.

The next G20 ministerial meeting will take place on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the governing bodies of the IMF and the World Bank in October in Marrakesh. The main results of the finance track will be reflected in the leaders' declaration in September of this year, the Ministry said.