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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY Remarks by Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen at Press Briefing Ahead of G20 September 8, 2023 As Prepared for Delivery Hello everyone. Thank you for being here. I’d like to share a few introductory thoughts about the priorities we will be focused on throughout this week. First, we are committed to supporting emerging markets and developing countries and to addressing global challenges. This includes our ongoing work on evolving the multilateral development banks. One year since my call to action to the MDBs, we have worked with a growing coalition of partners to make significant progress on reforms related to the World Bank’s mission and vision, incentives, operational model, and financing capacity. We are glad to have Ajay Banga as our partner in this work. And we look forward to more work with the regional development banks and on how to achieve greater collaboration across the MDB system, including to increase access to climate finance. We have already made significant progress in expanding the MDBs’ financial capacity. The recommendations that are currently being implemented or under consideration across the MDBs could unlock an additional $200 billion over the next decade. Those are crucial additional resources for reducing poverty, advancing global health security, and combatting climate change. I saw firsthand the impact this funding can have during my last trip to India just over a month ago, when Ajay Banga and I visited an education data hub supported by the World Bank and met the students whose lives were being improved. There is scope to do even more on financial capacity, including through some of the more mediumterm recommendations of the G20 Capital Adequacy Framework review, particularly with respect to callable capital. We are also asking Congress for $2.25 billion to boost the World Bank’s concessional finance for global challenges and for crisis response. And we have requested authorization for a loan of up to $21 billion for the IMF, including for the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT), which desperately needs more resources. We also hope to build support for an equi-proportional increase in quotas during meetings this week. This week also provides an opportunity to discuss debt relief. We continue to support efforts to provide predictable, orderly, and timely debt relief to countries, including under the Common Framework for Debt Treatment, where progress has been too slow. As a second priority area, we remain committed to extensive and strategic multilateral action in response to Russia’s war on Ukraine. The price cap and sanctions – both the result of unprecedented global collaboration – are having powerful impacts on Russia’s ability to wage its brutal and unjust war. We also remain committed to support for Ukraine and recently put forward a supplemental funding request. There has been bipartisan support for this funding to date and it’s critical that we continue to provide timely economic assistance. During my visit to Kyiv earlier this year, I saw firsthand the importance of this assistance in enabling Ukraine’s resistance on the frontlines. We are also grateful for the involvement of our partners, including the 50 billion euro package proposed by the European Union and the $15 billion International Monetary Fund program, which has been essential to Ukraine’s efforts to implement reforms and stabilize the economy. And we need to remain focused on addressing the devastating consequences of the war, including its impact on food security. Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative is deeply concerning and is particularly being felt by low- and middle-income countries. In response, we hope to move forward on efforts such as supporting the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program and working toward a successful replenishment of the International Fund for Agricultural Development. Last but not least, continuing to advance the U.S.-India relationship will be a priority this week. We highly value our bilateral relationship with India. This is my fourth time in India over the last year, making it the country I’ve visited most frequently as Treasury Secretary. We also welcomed Prime Minister Modi to the U.S. in June. The U.S. is home to the largest Indian diaspora outside of Asia and is India’s largest export market. Expanding our bilateral economic ties and our cooperation on global challenges is crucially important to us. With that, I look forward to your questions. ###
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