The leaders of the world’s 20 major economies gather for a second day of the online summit, hosted by Saudi Arabia on Sunday in a bid to lay the foundation for a post-coronavirus world.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic forced the summit, which had been scheduled originally to be held in Riyadh, to be conducted virtually. The economic crisis arising as a consequence of the virus has dominated the agenda at the two-day summit.
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Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud said on Saturday that 2020 was an "extraordinary" year in light of the "unprecedented shock" caused by the coronavirus pandemic, and Russian President Vladimir Putin emphasised that the world was facing a major economic crisis this year that could be comparable with the Great Depression of the Thirties.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in turn, called on G20 countries to boost contributions to the World Health Organisation's (WHO) COVID-19 vaccine initiative to halt the ongoing pandemic, and French President Emmanuel Macron told colleagues that the world’s leading economies should pull together to create a system whereby the first doses of any potential coronavirus vaccine will be distributed to the least developed and poorest countries.
The two-day summit will end on Sunday, with leaders adopting a joint declaration.
