Finance ministers and central bank chiefs of the G20 nations will discuss the mounting debt in developing and poor economies, cryptocurrencies and global growth concerns in times of elevated inflationary pressure, at a crucial meeting in Bengaluru this week, officials said on Tuesday.

The first meeting of the finance chiefs under India’s G20 presidency is expected to be an opportunity for New Delhi to leverage its growing economic and strategic heft to push for expeditious solutions to key global. India is set to use this week’s meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors from the Group of 20 nations to try to amplify its influence over developing economies in Asia, Africa and Latin America called the Global South.
Without the cash to dole out billions in loans like China did under President Xi Jinping’s Belt-and-Road Initiative, India is seeking to use soft power by championing issues important to struggling nations such as debt relief. That’s one issue that may emerge as a key theme at the meetings in Bengaluru on February 24-25.
While China is the obvious rival, India doesn’t want to be constrained by the US and its allies either and will stick up for its own interests on matters such as energy security. For Prime Minister Narendra Modi, this year’s hosting of the G20 is an opportunity to leverage India’s growing strategic and economic heft.
India’s geopolitical importance to the US and its allies has increased as American policy makers seek to thwart Beijing’s rise, with an increased focus on the Quad grouping that also includes Japan and Australia. Already the world’s most-populous nation according to some estimates, India is one of the fastest-expanding economies at a time of sluggish growth around the globe, luring companies like Apple Inc to expand.
Even before kicking off key G20 gatherings, New Delhi organized a virtual Global South summit in mid-January where Modi said: “As far as India is concerned, your voice is India’s voice. Your priorities are India’s priorities.”
Nirmala Sitharaman, in an address to fellow finance ministers from across 14 economies as far-flung as Belize and Sierra Leone during that summit, said that as G20 host, India seeks to “rebuild trust in multilateralism” and greater inclusion of struggling nations in discussions.
Reforming multilateral institutions, assistance for low- and middle-income countries on debt vulnerability and climate initiatives are among India’s priorities, according to the nation’s Chief Economic Adviser V Anantha Nageswaran.
As poorer nations face debt distress, India is pushing that conversation into the mainstream. G20 sherpa, Amitabh Kant, last week publicly pressured China to be more transparent on its loans to low-income countries and to take some losses.
India’s self-nomination as the leader of the Global South is the culmination of messaging on the global stage that it will not simply play by the rules and norms of more powerful nations. The government crackdown on BBC that met no resounding reprimand from the US and allies shows Modi’s success at leveraging his nation’s rising importance.
India’s resistance to some Western ideas extended to a more combative attitude toward criticism from foreign investors. After billionaire George Soros said Modi would “have to answer questions” about his relationship with Adani, the government went on the offensive.
Union minister Smriti Irani described Soros’s remarks as an attempt to destroy Indian democracy, a response similar to Adani’s characterization of US-based short-seller Hindenburg Research’s allegations against the group as an “attack on India.”
India’s oil minister expressed the country’s stance clearly in a recent interview when asked about New Delhi shunning Western sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. His message: It’s business, not personal.
“Energy is not about altruism or philanthropy,” Hardeep Singh Puri told Bloomberg Television’s Menaka Doshi on the sidelines of the G20 Energy Week meetings in Bengaluru.
India’s campaign has already garnered allies — some natural, some unlikely. Indonesia has signaled a strong backing of India’s leadership on the global stage as the Southeast Asian giant passed the torch of the G20 presidency this year.
Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati counted the two nations as “among a few big emerging countries who are performing very well on the economy,” and thus have “more gravitas, more influence and more respect globally,” she said in a recent interview with Nikkei Asia.