CAPE TOWN - President Cyril Ramaphosa has formally opened the G20 Finance Ministers, and Central Bank Governors' meeting in Cape Town this Wednesday 26 February.
Ramaphosa highlighted four main priorities South Africa will focus on, in its G20 presidency.
These include finding better ways to handle the debt levels of development.
"Debt service costs are increasingly crowding out spending on education, healthcare and other social services, as well as infrastructure needed for economic development.
"The work of the International Financial Architecture Working Group and other working groups will be particularly important in improving the Common Framework for Debt Treatment, accelerating the reform of multilateral development banks, and strengthening
capital flows to emerging markets," the President said.
As a backdrop against this, Ramaphosa also called for a fairer system that ensures minerals-rich nations benefit from their own wealth.
He stressed the need for a framework that promotes value addition and sustainable industrialisation.
"The fourth priority of our G20 Presidency is to harness critical minerals for inclusive growth and sustainable development. We need a G20 framework on green industrialisation and investment that promotes value addition to critical minerals close to the source of extraction.
"We need to promote the development of low-carbon manufacturing value chains which can support decarbonisation while promoting growth," Ramaphosa said.
He said as mineral extraction accelerates to match the needs of the energy transition, the countries and local communities endowed with these resources must be the ones to benefit the most.