Under the leadership of Hon’ble Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi, India is hosting the Presidency of the G20 from December 1, 2022 to November 30, 2023. As part of India’s G20 Presidency, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is leading the G20 Digital Economy Working Group (DEWG), which has identified three priority areas namely Digital Public Infrastructure, Security in the Digital Economy, and Digital Skilling. Over the past 8 months, extensive discussions have been held among G20 members, invited countries, and International Organisations on the various aspects of the priority areas and key deliverables.

The first, second and third meetings of the DEWG were organised at Lucknow, Hyderabad and Pune in February 2023, April 2023, and June 2023 respectively. As a part of these meetings, the side events having global and Indian experts as speakers and participants from G20 and interested countries were organised. These side events primarily focused on engaging the public and private sector stakeholders and on sharing the national, industrial, as well as international best practices and on making better understanding of priority areas of Digital Economy.

The fourth and final meeting of G20 DEWG kick-started in the Bengaluru today. The meeting started with welcome address by Mr. Sushil Pal, Co-chair, G20 DEWG and Joint Secretary, MeitY. In the opening remarks, Mr. Alkesh Kumar Sharma, Chair, G20 DEWG and Secretary, MeitY emphasised on inclusive, decisive, ambitious, and action-oriented priority areas. He thanked the participating delegates from G20 members, invited countries and international organisations for their contribution in sharing inputs for the draft “G20 Digital Economy Ministerial Declaration”. He expressed hope that knowledge outcomes will significantly help the global digital economy. Thereafter, the detailed deliberations on the draft “G20 Digital Economy Ministerial Declaration” were held regarding the priority areas. The deliberations in DEWG will continue till tomorrow, i.e., August 17, 2023. The declaration will be taken for the consideration and acceptance in the Digital Economy Ministerial Meeting (DEMM) that is scheduled on August 19, 2023.

Over 100 foreign delegates from G20 members, 9 invited countries and 5 International Organizations namely OECD, ITU, UNDP, World Bank and UNESCO attended the meeting today and it is expected that over 200 foreign delegates will join the DEMM by August 19, 2023.

Also, the G20 Digital Innovation Alliance (DIA) Summit will be organised on August 17-19, 2023, at Palace Ground, Bengaluru. The summit will have a vibrant exhibition, comprising of Startups, Incubators, Accelerators, Corporates, State Governments, etc. More than 110 startups from 24 countries would be participating in the summit.

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