'India's digital infra can help global financial groups'

India is confident of achieving closure on key issues ahead of the upcoming G20 Leaders' Summit in New Delhi from 9 September.

- Gulveen Aulakh & Shouvik Das

In an interview, Amitabh Kant, India's G20 sherpa, spoke about the progress that India has made in its discussions around pushing for a higher quantum of climate financing around the world and how this can contribute to the better achievement of sustainable development goals. Kant also spoke about the role India's digital public infrastructure (DPI) can play in building a better global financial institution and how India's recent trade restrictions align with other major economies globally.

Edited excerpts:

The G20 leaders' summit is approaching. Have the points of discussion been finalized by the sherpas?

Discussions are ongoing. We are doing inter-session negotiations at present, based on inputs that we've received from various ministerials. These will go on. The sherpa meeting is from the 3rd (of September) onward and will go on until the 8th, with the 9th and 10th being the Leaders' Summit. We are confident of achieving closure on some of the issues before the Leaders' Summit-hopefully, we should have a positive and progressive leaders' declaration. That's our aim-to see that we are able to arrive at a consensus on all developmental issues.

Our focus has been largely on being ambitious, inclusive, decisive, and action-oriented.