TEPAV / T20 Contributed to the Workshop "China-Australia Global Issues Dialogue” at Shanghai

15/08/2015

Shanghai, 15 August 2015 - TEPAV / T20 contributed to the workshop "China-Australia Global Issues Dialogue” organized by the Shanghai Institutes of International Studies and National University of Australia. Organized for the third time, the dialogue included 30 experts on global issues from China, Australia, India, Japan and Singapore. TEPAV was invited to represent Turkey, which the current G20 chair country.

Among the issues discussed in the dialogue were the policies to foster innovation that leads growth, balance technology-induced unemployment, as well as short-term risks created by Fed’s planned rate increase and Eurozone debt crisis. Recent market developments in China were also a focus issue. The experts questioned the feasibility of the 2% additional growth target by 2018 set in the G20 Brisbane summit in 2014, and elaborated on the political economy barriers to reform in the upcoming election years in most G20 countries. Another focus issues was declining multilateralism in the international trade and role of upcoming Chinese G20 presidency to to revitalize multilateral trade system. Participants drew attention to rising restrictions against technology transfer in the mega trade and investment deals, such as TPP, and possible repercussions on the long-term development of the emerging markets.

Ussal Sahbaz, director of the G20 Studies Center at TEPAV spoke at the panel on investment, and explained the work by Think 20 and Business 20 on infrastructure investments. In his presentation, Sahbaz suggested policy options to improve the infrastructure investment eco-system by coordinated interventions into different parts of the project development cycle, such as project preparation, procurement / approvals, financing and asset management. Sahbaz also discussed the country-specific investment strategies asked by Turkish G20 Presidency to be submitted to the Antalya summit by the G20 members, and mentioned that the absence of sustainability links in the investment plans misses an opportunity to link the G20 investment policies to the sustainable development goals that are to be approved this year.