B20 business leaders say global economy needs a kick-start

The B20 group of business leaders are asking the world’s richest countries to increase spending on infrastructure and reduce the amount of regulation and red tape to help give the global economy a kick-start.

B-20 summits are summits of business leaders from the G-20 countries. This year the B-20 summit is in Sydney, Australia.

The B20 are going to express their concerns that the global economic growth, which has been sluggish, needs to be a priority for politicians.

There are a number of changes that the B20 has proposed that could help fuel growth and reduce the number of people living in poverty – improving the standard of living across the world.

What does the B20 want?

• Freer trade.
• More government-sponsored infrastructure funding.
• Better and more streamlined government regulation.
• Addressing the issue of public corruption.

Infrastructure spending would generate millions of jobs

The group predicts that more infrastructure projects could potentially generate $6 trillion and 100 million new jobs over the next 16 years.

Richard Goyder, B20 chair and Wesfarmers CEO, believes that the downgrade in growth forecasts for the world’s biggest economies (including the Eurozone, the US, and Japan) is evidence of the financial struggle occurring.

Goyder believes that there needs to be extensive policy reform in order to drive investment and jobs.

He said:

“Against this backdrop of slowing economic growth, with interest rates at record lows and government stimulus at capacity, we need ambitious policy reform to drive investment and jobs.”

According to Telstra CEO David Thodey, there was a $1 trillion a year gap between what infrastructure should be built around the world and what governments could fund, including projects such as roads, power, water, public transport systems, and telecommunications projects.

The B20 asks for governments to provide a list of what projects are ready to begin working on, which would make it easier for businesses to plan and make new investments.

Goyder added:

“It’s not just the economic development and jobs that (this) will create, but also the long term community development.”