ignazio visco : an overview of the work of the g20 under the italian presidency remarks by mr ignazio visco, governor of the bank of italy, at the singapore fintech festival, virtual, 10 november 2021. * * * i would like to thank ravi menon for his kind invitation to this fintech festival and the staff of the monetary authority of singapore for their very helpful assistance. in these remarks, i will provide a brief overview of the work and the main results achieved this year by the group of twenty ( g20 ) under the italian presidency, with special reference to its finance track. italy took up the g20 presidency at a critical time, not only due to the pandemic, but also because multilateralism had suffered major setbacks in previous years. this bout of inwardorientation in economic relations is perhaps best exemplified by the trade tensions between the united states and china, but is certainly not limited to this, with brexit being another important example. this “ crisis of multilateralism ” has its deepest roots in the prolonged inattention given to the side effects of globalisation and technological progress. these phenomena, despite their positive impact on welfare and their contribution to the reduction of cross - country inequalities, have caused significant losses for segments of populations, not least within advanced economies, that were unprepared for these changes and found themselves unprotected during the process. the start of our g20 presidency in december 2020 also coincided with the transitioning to the new administration in the united states. since then, multilateral dialogue has been reignited across many dimensions and this momentum has positively impacted our g20 presidency, facilitating the achievement of several important results. the key challenges that all our economies are currently facing continue to be related to the pandemic and to its direct and indirect consequences. this is the main reason why many people have been pushed into poverty, unemployment has increased, and both public and private debt have risen. the unequal distribution of vaccines in all regions, especially in the least developed ones, remains a major risk factor for the global economy. in order to help the weakest economies address the health crisis, debt service payments for 50 countries have been suspended since 2020, and the italian presidency has succeeded in extending this provision until the end of this year. moreover, a consensus has been reached for a general allocation of special drawing rights by the imf ( for 650 billion dollars ), which will allow low

##ms and cfms. this is an ambitious and welcome project that will offer guidance on the optimal selection of policy tools and their calibration, depending on the nature of the shocks as well as on the cyclical and structural characteristics of individual countries. we at the bank of italy shall be happy to contribute to the debate, following our well - established tradition of research on the issue of the optimal choice of policy tools. 5 for instance, p. angelini, s. neri, and f. panetta ( ‘ monetary and macroprudential policy ’, banca d ’ italia, working paper no. 801 ( march, 2011 ) ) show that mpms are useful when financial or housing market shocks are a key source of instability ; by contrast, in ‘ normal ’ times, the benefits of mpms are modest. v. nispi landi, ( ‘ capital controls, macroprudential measures and monetary policy interactions in an emerging economy ’, banca d ’ italia working paper no. 1154 ( december 2017 ) ), explores the interaction of capital controls and mpms with monetary policy in emes and shows that, assuming banks are indebted in foreign currency, capital controls and mpms can mitigate the adverse effects of an increase in the foreign interest rate, depending on the source of shocks. designed by the printing and publishing division of the bank of italy