Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to attend the Group of 20 summit in Bali this November, Indonesian President Joko Widodo confirmed for the first time Thursday.
“[Chinese leader] Xi Jinping will come. President Putin has also told me he will come,” Widodo told Bloomberg following phone talks with the Russian leader.
The Kremlin said earlier Thursday that Putin and Widodo discussed preparations for the G20 summit, though it did not mention whether Putin would attend.
The Kremlin declined to comment on the Indonesian president’s announcement to Bloomberg, but the news agency said an unnamed official familiar with the situation confirmed Putin’s plans to attend the summit in person.
If confirmed, it would be one of Putin’s first face-to-face meetings with Western leaders since he ordered a full-scale attack on neighboring Ukraine in February.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's adviser said earlier this month that the war-torn country's leader would also attend the G20 summit if Putin were in attendance.
Western governments have sought to isolate Russia with crippling economic sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine. Only half of G20 members has joined the international sanctions, Bloomberg reported earlier in August.
The United States had sought to remove Russia from the G20 and pressured Indonesia to exclude Putin from the summit.
Putin has meanwhile claimed “it’s simply impossible” to isolate Russia from the rest of the world.
Putin hosted Widodo at the Kremlin on June 30, days after the Kremlin announced that it had “responded positively” to the invitation to the G20 summit under Indonesia’s presidency of a forum of the world’s largest economies.
ISLAMABAD: The prime ministers of Pakistan and India are likely to have a meeting during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, diplomatic sources told Daily Jang.
The SCO summit is scheduled for September 15-16 where leaders of the organisation will sit together to discuss regional challenges.
Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif will attend the conference during which he is likely to meet the presidents of China, Russia, Iran and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi.
The sources confirmed that in its July 28 meeting, the SCO foreign ministers reiterated that the heads of SCO states will attend the summit.
Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto, who had attended the meeting in Tashkent, said that a bilateral meeting between the Pakistani and Indian leaders is not scheduled.
“There are no plans of any meetings between Indian and Pakistani prime ministers in September,” Bilawal had told WION News, adding that both India and Pakistan are part of the SCO and the two countries are only engaged in the context of the broad-based activities of the organisation.
The foreign minister had said: “India is our neighbouring country. While one can decide on a lot of things, one cannot choose its neighbours, therefore, we should get used to living with them.”
Bilawal recalled that after 2019, constructive dialogue with India became difficult, while statements based on Islamophobia by Indian officials are further creating hurdles in dialogue.
Rabat — The 14th US-Africa Business Summit 2022, which took place from July 19 to 22 in Marrakech, was a success, according to the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
Participants in this summit, organized under the High Patronage of HM King Mohammed VI, were able to exchange during 3 days around the opportunities to strengthen industrial links, investment and trade between our continent and the United States, said the ministry in a statement.
This event brought together senior U.S. and African government officials from more than 50 countries, 6 FMs and over 20 ministers representing different sectors, in addition to representatives of U.S. and African government agencies, investment and pension funds and international and regional organizations.
The summit gathered more than 1,500 participants, 80% of which were from the major U.S. and African business communities and 40% of which were women.
The event was divided into 37 sessions dealing with issues of health and food sovereignty, innovation, new technologies, energy and infrastructure, topics covered by more than 200 representatives of national and African media, the same source said, according to the same source.
This event, which was attended by more than 450 U.S. economic operators including Pfizer, Visa, Citi, Procter & Gamble, Chevron, Coca Cola, Google and major African groups, has achieved more than 5,000 connections with many business contracts signed.
This summit was an opportunity for Morocco to consolidate its role as a bridge between Africa and the United States and to encourage the construction of a forward-looking African economy, drawing strength from its integration into the global system and international value chains.
The closing plenary of the event, organized under the theme "Building the Future Together," provided an opportunity to collectively reflect on the future of a promising continent at all levels.
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On this occasion, the Minister of Industry and Trade, Ryad Mezzour, emphasized the vision of His Majesty the King in adopting "a coherent and integrated policy towards our African brothers, based on a joint investment of wealth, human development and strengthening economic cooperation."
Despite a difficult context full of challenges and marked by the reconfiguration of the international economy, Africa has all the assets to be an active player and better integrate into the global value chains and transformation.
African companies have a key role to play and are called upon to take commercial risks to seize the opportunities offered by a larger market by expanding their manufacturing base.
"Our priorities as African countries must be to put sovereignty at the heart of all sector strategies and to see it as a priority for securing supply and employment. We must commit to encouraging local manufacturing, creating strategic reserves for certain key products, and diversifying sources of supply for energy and food," Mezzour said.
