VISAKHAPATNAM: A security blanket was thrown over Visakhapatnam as the second edition of the two-day G20 Infrastructure Working Group (IWG) meeting kicked off in the city on Tuesday.
On day one, 57 delegates from 14 member countries, eight guest countries and 10 international organisations attended the meeting and deliberated on the 2023 Infrastructure Agenda under India’s G20 Presidency.
In the evening, Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy joined the delegates for a brief meeting and took part in the “Ratri Bhoj Par Samvad” gala dinner.
Delegates focussed on the theme of ‘Financing Cities of Tomorrow: Inclusive, Resilient and Sustainable’ and discussed facets of making cities economic centres of growth and financing urban infrastructure. The event provided a platform for the delegates to share their expertise in infrastructure development and explore solutions to global challenges.
Focus on financing models on day 1
The meeting also discussed other important themes such as innovative financing models to scale up private sector investment to address the infrastructure financing gap for creating future cities and discussing the potential application of Quality Infrastructure Investment (QII) indicators across projects.
Experts from UNDP (United Nations Development Programme), OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), IMF (International Monetary Fund), ADB (Asian Development Bank) and EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) took part in a roundtable conducted on the sidelines of the conference to discuss the role of infrastructure definitions and taxonomies in making better data-driven decisions.
Representatives from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), Mexico and the Office for National Statistics, United Kingdom, presented case studies on improving national infrastructure spending.