The National Treasury and the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), which are jointly responsible for overseeing the work of the Group of 20 (G20) Finance Track, will start the first set of technical meetings under the G20 Finance Track this week, with a meeting of the Framework Working Group (FWG) from January 13 to 14.

The meeting will take place virtually and follows that of the Finance and Central Bank Deputies in December 2024.

The first day of the meeting will focus on the main headwinds to global growth, ongoing supply and demand risks to inflation, and the main fiscal risks to growth and inflation. It will also discuss the economic outlook for Africa, Treasury and the SARB said.

Further, the second day of the meeting will discuss the draft FWG work plan for 2025, which includes priority areas identified by the South African Presidency. These priorities include enhancing global economic resilience in light of growth risks like fragmentation and macroeconomic imbalances; strengthening macroeconomic foundations and growth reforms in light of climate change; and assessing labour productivity, technological development and demographic change.

The mandate of the FWG is to promote strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth, and does so by identifying, monitoring and assessing global macroeconomic risks, vulnerabilities and uncertainties and recommending suitable policy responses to global shocks and cross-cutting global challenges, the organisations said.

The meeting will be the first of four FWG meetings planned for the year. The remaining three meetings for this Working Group are scheduled for April, June and September in venues across the country.

The outcomes of these meetings will inform discussions at the meetings of the Finance and Central Bank Deputies and Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors.

South Africa assumed the G20 Presidency on 1 December 2024 and will host the G20 Leaders’ Summit later this year, the SARB and Treasury said.