G-20 finance leaders eye ways to support pandemic recovery

“The pandemic is far from over, and the global economy is struggling,” he said. “During this situation, no single country could recover alone. All countries are interconnected, no one is isolated.”

The G-20 financial gathering comes as many economies are treading a precarious path between raising costs of borrowing to cool inflation and helping to support recoveries from the pandemic.

“It is not the time to create new tensions that could affect global recovery, let alone jeopardize the world peace as we’ve currently seen in Ukraine,” he said. “It is necessary that every party puts an end to rivalry and frictions.”

Officials were attending the meetings both in person and online, given troubles with travel and quarantines due to outbreaks, mostly of the omicron variant of coronavirus, that are plaguing many countries.

Host Indonesia is among many countries in Southeast Asia that have endured severe waves of infections, though vaccinations have helped quell the worst of outbreaks.

The fourth most populous nation with 274 million people, it has reported nearly 5 million cases and 145,622 deaths. In the past month, 690,518 new cases have been reported.

Indonesia is the world’s 10th largest economy and is located in the fastest growing region — at least before the pandemic swept the world, disrupting business and travel while killing nearly 6 million people.

Surging prices for food and energy…