G20 preview: Economy, immigration, environment on agenda

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Europe

Germany hosts this year's G20 Summit at the Hamburg Messe under the theme “Shaping an interconnected world”.

The G20 countries represent 85 percent of the global output, 80 percent of the global trade, and two-thirds of the world’s population.

CGTN correspondent Natalie Carney takes a look at past summits and what can be expected from this year’s meeting.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, “Economy is the main area of interest for the G20 but it cannot be independent from political, social or cultural problems and it is never independent from human life.”

At last year's summit in the Chinese city of Hangzhou, fiscal issues were more dominant as China focused on the diversity of voices and interests of developed and developing economies, inside and outside of the G20.

Photo via G20 official websites‍

Chinese President Xi Jinping said, ”We should keep on strengthening and building the G20 framework, ensure we continue and deepen cooperation, and listen to advice from across the world, especially from developing countries. It will make the G20's work more comprehensive and easier to respond to the requests from people of different countries."

This year, Germany will press the Group of 20 to collectively reaffirm its commitment to promoting free trade, resisting currency wars and fighting climate change under the theme “shaping an interconnected world.” The challenge will be doing all this in an increasingly disconnected world led by the new isolationist governments of two major G20 players – Britain and the US.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, ”It may be that isolationism and protectionism make life a bit easier for companies in the short term, because they are temporarily shielded from international competition. But in the middle and long term the ability to innovate suffers and thus so does competitively.”