Saudi Minister of Finance Mohammed Al-Jadaan has said that governments should study long-term solutions, such as allocating budgets for risk and crisis management worldwide.
In the “Building Future Preparedness” panel, during the World Economic Forum, Al-Jadaan added that the G20 represents 80% of the world. It works with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) to develop policies to face risks and ensure fiscal stability.
In his opening speech, Al-Jadaan stressed that the past two years have provided many lessons to build economic resilience and improve preparedness for the future, citing the need to take deliberate and decisive data-based measures to reduce risks while balancing public health and social and economic needs.
“The Group of Twenty agreed to form a joint task force from the ministries of health and finance to ensure the world is better prepared for the future, and it is important that we support these efforts,” said Al-Jadaan, pointing that the coronavirus pandemic had “provided us with a clear lesson that no one country can fight alone.”
The minister also clarified that the transformation in the field of energy and sustainable development are two main factors to be able to build a resilient global economy, but the threat that is often ignored is the need to ensure energy security, so that the matter is not negatively affected by the transformation.
Al-Jadaan stressed that the G20 is working with the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other multilateral institutions to find a way to better prepare for potential crises in the future by continuing structural reforms and managing risks, noting that in the past, it took years to produce vaccines, yet today, with collective cooperation, whether from the private sector or the government, “we were able to deal well with the crisis, we were able to provide support to low-income countries and we were able to provide relief efforts in agreement with the G20 and Paris Club, while the International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreed to distribute the equivalent of $650 billion from its special drawing rights to support liquidity.”
The minister further said that the Kingdom supports sustainability while ensuring energy security and the inevitability of moving to a green and sustainable global economy, based on a flexible and thoughtful approach, to ensure energy security and economic stability in the long term.
