This year’s G20 Summit, held in New Delhi, was a chance for India to tout its influence and power. With India recently replacing the U.K. as the world’s fifth-largest economy and its influential hold over global trade, this summit was a chance to show the world how far the country has come. Collectively, the group of 19 countries plus the European Union is responsible for roughly 85% of global GDP, 75% of global trade, and approximately two-thirds of the world’s population. This was also the first G20 Summit to include the 55-member African Union, giving a greater voice to the Global South.
The topics that came up during this year’s G20 Summit include a rift between India and Canada, a new U.S.-backed transport corridor linking the Middle East and South Asia, and climate change. All three topics are pertinent to the global mobility industry and could affect industry standards in the coming years.
Climate Change
The discussions around climate change at this year’s G20 has set the stage for incremental change. While the group at G20 did not amend any existing policies or targets, they did agree to pursue tripling renewable energy capacity globally by 2030. They also agreed that a global phase-down of coal is crucial to meeting current global warming goals but did not make any specific plans. However, it’s reasonable to expect more detailed plans and goal amendments to come out of the environmental COP28 summit that will take place in the United Arab Emirates this November and December.
A New Trader Corner
One of the biggest news coming out of the G20 Summit was the announcement of a signed memorandum of understanding between the United States, Saudi Arabia, India, the European Union, as well as the nations of France, Germany, and Italy about the new India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). The first blueprints for the corridor will be available soon.
IMEC will be composed of two separate corridors, the first connecting India to the Arabian Gulf and the second connecting the Arabian Gulf to Europe. IMEC will have a railway connecting the entire corridor designed to “provide a reliable and cost-effective cross-border ship-to-rail transit network to supplement existing maritime and road transport routes, enabling goods and services to transit to, from, and between India, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, and Europe. "
This trade corner will greatly influence the global mobility industry, affecting everything from visa processing services to shipping vendors. The first blueprints are expected to be unveiled at the digital G20 Summit held on 30 November.
A Chill Between India and Canada Affects Mobility
Despite the friendly theme of India’s G20 presidency, “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam," which translates to “One Earth – One Family – One Future," tensions have risen with one nation in particular: Canada. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi declined to participate in a formal bilateral meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, which has been perceived as a snub, and during the G20 Summit, accounts say that Modi pulled Trudeau aside to criticize how Canada has handled recent protests by Sikhist separatists. After India, Canada has the highest population of Sikhs. Shortly after the summit, Canada announced that it would postpone an October trade mission to India.
Tensions escalated further after the summit when Trudeau claimed that agents of the Indian government had a link to the June killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh separatist activist in Canada. India has denied the claims and suspended visa processing services including employment, student, and tourist visas to India. On 2 October, India moved to expel 41 out of the 62 Canadian diplomats residing in India while Canada expelled the head of India’s security service in Canada.
The India-Canada relationship is a significant one from a mobility standpoint. In 2021 alone, India welcomed 80,000 Canadian tourists, making Canadians the fourth-largest tourist group. In Canada, Indian nationals make up 40% of their international student population, and Canada is home to nearly 1.4 million people of Indian origin. Suspended trade talks and visa services directly affect the global mobility space, disrupting business travel, students, and employees from Canadian and Indian IT firms such as Bombardier, TCS, and Infosys. Mobility professionals should continue to monitor the situation closely.