New Delhi, Nov 3 (IANS) A group of business leaders affiliated to the G20 have recommended that the summit being held in Cannes should focus on food security and infrastructure development.
The B20 summit is part of the G20 summit in which presidents of the business confederations of the member countries and 120 chief executives of global companies meet to work on recommendations to be presented to the leaders.
According to R.V. Kanoria, senior vice president, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and convenor of B20 working group on development, the G20 summit should focus on ways to coordinate agricultural policies at the global level, focusing on export restrictions.
‘This requires extensive improvements in food security policies, as well as increased transparency through improved data collection, sharing and monitoring,’ FICCI said in a statement.
The working group also recommended increasing investments in agriculture by 50 percent from public and private sector by 2015.
‘With these investments, agricultural productivity should increase by 20 percent per decade in order to meet food and feed demand,’ the statement said.
On infrastructure development, Kanoria said private sector investment should be promoted and supported by the government and multilateral institutions.
‘This has to be accomplished in a cost-effective, efficient and sustainable manner, so that sustainable infrastructure becomes a clear enabler for sustainable economic growth and development,’ Kanoria said.
The B20 working group recommended the G20 leaders to create conditions for successful public private partnership (PPP) projects and strengthen the project design and preparation to on a ‘well-prepared project’ (WPP) model, which takes the whole lifecycle cost into account.
‘The WPP concept clearly establishes the requirements for a successful project in terms of quality of the work as well as respect for budgets and schedules,’ the statement said.
