By Jane Han
Staff Reporter
South Korea was named Friday (KST) to host the Group of 20 summit in November next year, becoming the first Asian country to hold the meeting of the world's 20 major economies that represent 85 percent of global output.
Government sources said Incheon is the strongest candidate city for the summit as it has emerged as a major attraction for international investors with its ambitious projects to become a Northeast Asian economic hub.
An Incheon City official, who declined to be named, said it was too early to discuss future plans, but expressed the hope that hosting the summit would lead to positive economic ripple effects in the region.
Incheon Mayor Ahn Sang-soo, who has long campaigned to get the global gathering, said hotels and other accommodation will be built, if necessary, to lodge the some 2,000 participants expected to visit for the summit.
Asia's fourth-largest economy won the hosting right after neighbors Japan, China and Australia gave their backing at the third G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, which ended today (KST).
``Hosting a G20 summit carries tremendous significance, so we must build our national prowess to live up to higher standards,'' President Lee Myung-bak told reporters, calling hosting the summit a ``diplomatic triumph.''
The summit will be held twice next year, once in Canada in April and then in Korea in November, said Lee in a joint news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
The 20-member club comprised of the world's leading rich and developing countries has met three times since the global financial crisis struck last September to coordinate a global plan to fight the worst recession since the Great Depression.
Amid signs of recovery, the world's industrial powers agreed that the upcoming meeting next year will be even more significant as a majority of countries start devising coherent exit strategies.
``The third G-20 summit didn't hammer out hard details of a global exit plan from the recession because it is still premature to be doing so,'' said Kwak Soo-jong, an economist at the Samsung Economic Research Institute, who added that some economies are at risk of falling back into a slump.
``But the next summit is when we're going to be seeing global leaders aggressively coordinate their exit plans,'' he said. ``And it's meaningful that South Korea is going to be at the center of such an influential gathering.''
The G20 currently represents nearly 85 percent of the world's economic output, and is expected to essentially replace the more elite G8, which has so far locked out emerging economies including China, Brazil and India.
Seoul officials hope that South Korea's hosting of the meeting will raise the country's voice and profile in the international community.
``We need to start moving to the forefront of the global financial scene and we'll be able to do so by chairing the upcoming summit,'' said Sakong Il, the head of the G20 Summit Korea Coordinating Committee.
Sakong is a key figure the Lee administration appointed to lead the country's efforts to bring home the hosting rights.
President Lee named Sakong, an experienced financier, to head the G20 coordination committee last year, as soon as he returned to Seoul from the first G-20 summit in Washington D.C. dealing with the economic crisis. Since then, Sakong has consistently met with leaders around the world to promote Seoul's bid.
``The hosting rights wasn't handed to us for nothing,'' said a high-ranking government official, who explained that the administration has done heavy groundwork over the past year by getting actively involved in the first three summits, respectively held in Washington D.C., London and Pittsburgh.
jhan@koreatimes.co.kr
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