G20 Presidency
Addressing digitalisation at global level
Under Germany’s Presidency, the G20 intends to focus more on the digital transformation, in order to make economies around the world fit for the future. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and Federal Minister for Economics Affairs have set the ball rolling with an international conference.
More digitalisation is generating many new markets and new jobs
Photo: picture-alliance/dpa
A meeting of the G20 ministers responsible for digital affairs, to be held at the start of April in Düsseldorf, will be the highlight of the project. "We must ensure that everybody in every country has access to the digital economy and that they can participate in it," demanded Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Sigmar Gabriel in an op-ed co-authored with the OECD /The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) Secretary-General Ángel Gurría.
For balanced growth
"Digitalisation is a global challenge, and that is why we are addressing it at global level," Sigmar Gabriel continued. Modern technologies offer a huge potential, in the form of automation and the swifter processing of data. But, a common international framework for action is needed – like the G20, which he described as the "ideal platform for jointly devised strategies which we can use to shape the future".
Since December 2016 Germany has held the G20 Presidency. Its agenda aims to limit economic, social, environmental and political risks through collective action, as well as ensuring robust, sustainable and balanced growth of the global economy. In the final analysis it is not only growth per se that is important,but the type and quality of that growth.
Seeing digital transformation as an opportunity
"For this, we must see digitalisation as an opportunity," underscored Sigmar Gabriel. The key preconditions are access for all to an efficient infrastructure, digital education, the international harmonisation of standards, and transparency and confidence in the digital world, he added.
At the conference "Key Issues for Digital Transformation in the G20" the OECD and the German G20 Presidency aim to lay out political action in as concrete terms as possible. The results of the discussion will be incorporated in the deliberations when the G20 ministers responsible for digital affairs meet in Düsseldorf on 6 and 7 April.
Thursday, 12 January 2017