Turkey will discuss its development-focused agenda at G-20 summit

ANKARA

Turkish PM Ahmet Davutoğlu speaks ahead of his departure for the G-20 summit in Australia. AA Photo

Turkey will strive to implement a heavy agenda aimed at narrowing the disparity between the most and least developed countries during its G-20 presidency, its prime minister has vowed ahead of this weekend’s G-20 leaders’ summit hosted by outgoing president Australia in Brisbane.

While the leader of the G-20 will discuss a wealth of hot issues, primarily economic, during the summit to be held on Nov. 15 and 16, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, who arrived in Brisbane yesterday, will seek to explain his country’s agenda just few weeks before its assumption of the G-20 presidency on Dec. 1.

Speaking to reporters in Ankara’s Esenboğa Airport before departing to Australia, Davutoğlu said the timing of Turkey’s presidency coincides with a crucial time for the group.

“Turkey will take over the term presidency in a very crucial year because 2015 is also a crucial year in terms of the U.N.’s development agenda,” Davutoğlu said. “This will be a year when many important development issues will be approached,” he said.

The U.N. had set eight millennium development goals aimed to be achieved by 2015 in its Millennium Summit held in 2000. As the targets’ deadline has come to an end, the international organization is working on a post-2015 development plan that will extend the gains of the past 15 years.

Within this context, Turkey will be tasked with a heavy burden of coordinating the implementation of decisions made by G-20 countries in 2015, as well as harmonizing these plans with the U.N., according to Davutoğlu.

The prime minister also recalled Turkey has another position as the coordinator of the least developed economies of the world, which was granted to it in 2010 for a 10-year period.

And according to Davutoğlu, this will enable Turkey to be a “bridge between the least and most developed countries.”

Supporting small and medium enterprises (SMEs) will be prioritized in Turkey’s G-20 agenda as part of this bid, he added.

The current host, Australia, set the grouping an ambitious target of growing its combined economic output by 2 percent, or about $2 trillion, over the next five years.

Davutoğlu said their meeting over the weekend will also provide grounds to debate the steps needed to be taken to urgently achieve these goals.

For its part, the Turkish government has recently announced the first nine programs of a detailed economic transformation plan that is aimed at reaching ambitious economic goals and boosting the economy.

The prime minister said Turkey will also have the chance to share its experiences and review other countries’ strategies and growth targets while forming the Brisbane Action Plan, a set of goals aimed to agree on at the end of the summit.

The Brisbane Action Plan will be discussed by the world leaders at the summit to organize and list short and medium-term actions to help in achieving ambitious growth targets.

Developing common understandings in several fields related with global economy, including trade, energy, investments, financial systems and infrastructure, as well as discussing solution alternatives for current global problems, are among the summit’s targets, he added.