Top financial officials from the Group of 20 leading rich and developing nations met on the Indonesian island of Bali on Friday seeking strategies to counter the economic fallout from the war in Ukraine, inflation and other global crises.
Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati opened the two-day meeting by urging fellow finance ministers, central bank chiefs and other leaders to find ways to “build bridges, not walls.” She said the consequences of failure, especially for less wealthy nations, would be “catastrophic.”
“Millions and millions if not billions of people are depending on us," Indrawati said.
The meetings in Bali's Nusa Dua resort town follow a gathering there of foreign ministers earlier this month that failed to find common ground over Russia's war in Ukraine and its global impacts.
A G-20 finance meeting in Washington, D.C. in April saw officials from the U.S., Britain, France, Canada and Ukraine walk out to protest the attendance of Russian envoys. That meeting ended without the release of a joint statement.
Still, the G-20 financial meetings have the advantage of being less political in nature, Indrawati said.
Indonesia, as host, has tried to act as an “honest broker," she said, uniting a divided East and West within the G-20, a schism that has sharpened since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February.
