Canberra
The Government is very pleased to announce Mr Richard Goyder AO, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Wesfarmers Limited, has accepted our invitation to lead business engagement during Australia's presidency of the Group of 20 in 2014.
Mr Goyder will head the Australian B20, which will bring together senior Australian business people to work with the Government on the G20 policy agenda for our host year in 2014.
As one of Australia's largest employers, Mr Goyder will bring tremendous experience and unique perspectives to this important role.
Mr Goyder leads one of Australia's most diverse and successful companies and is exceptionally well placed to work closely with Australian and international business to help deliver outcomes in a time of global economic uncertainty.
The B20 is the key business advisory body to the international economic forum and will include business leaders from all G20 economies.
Hosting the forum will give local industry the unprecedented opportunity to help shape and drive the global economic agenda.
The Government will work closely with the business community throughout 2013 and beyond as Australia formulates an agenda that will deliver on the G20's core goal of promoting economic prosperity and jobs.
We are also pleased to announce the following key leaders from across the local business community will join Mr Goyder on the Australian B20.
• John Borghetti - Virgin Australia• Jillian Broadbent - Clean Energy Finance Corporation• Mark Burrows - Credit Suisse• Cameron Clyne - National Australia Bank• John Denton - Corrs Chambers Westgarth• Elmer Funke-Kupper - ASX Limited• Jerry Harris - News Limited• Gail Kelly - Westpac Banking Corporation• Grant King - Origin Energy• Nick Leeder - Google• James MacKenzie - Mirvac and Yancoal Australia• Pip Marlow - Microsoft• Ian Narev - Commonwealth Bank of Australia• Ann Pickard - Shell• Heather Ridout - Reserve Bank of Australia• Steve Sargent - GE Australia and New Zealand• Tony Shepherd - Business Council of Australia• Catherine Tanna - BG Australia• David Thodey - Telstra• Ian Thomas - Boeing Australia• David Tudehope - Macquarie Telecom• Hamish Tyrwhitt - Leighton Holdings• Innes Willox - Australian Industry Group• Marius Kloppers - BHP Billiton
The G20 offers an excellent opportunity to showcase local business to an international audience, and to strengthen links between Australian industry, our regional partners and the rest of the world. It will also be an avenue to pursue goals set out in the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper to support growth and jobs for Australians.
The B20 has become an integral part of the G20 process and makes a significant contribution to the G20's work. Australia will seek to strengthen the G20's dialogue with the private sector further still during our host year. We see business input as essential to achieving the G20's core goal of stronger global growth and job creation. We expect the Australian B20 will play an important role in working with the wider business community to develop pragmatic and practical suggestions for the G20 agenda.
Queensland will also benefit with Brisbane hosting the G20 Leaders summit November and Cairns hosting a finance ministers and central bank governors meeting. There will also be opportunities to showcase other parts of the country during 2014.
Further information on the B20 is available in the fact sheet included as Attachment A.
BUSINESS 20 FACT SHEET
The Group of Twenty (G20) is the premier forum for global economic and financial cooperation. It brings together the world's major advanced and emerging economies, representing around 85 per cent of global GDP. Russia is hosting the G20 in 2013, and Australia will host in 2014 with the leaders summit to be held in Brisbane in November 2014.
In recent years, business leaders from G20 countries have come together to form the Business 20 (B20) to provide private sector input to the G20. The B20 was first convened as part of the Canadian G20 Presidency in June 2010 and continued to play an important role during the following Korean, French and Mexican presidencies.
The B20 generates policy recommendations to inform the deliberations of the G20 with a view to influencing the final outcome of G20 summits. The B20's recommendations have typically been presented to leaders for their consideration. The B20's contribution reflects the broadly-shared view among G20 countries that the private sector, as the main driver of economic activity, has a key role to play in achieving the goal of strong, sustainable and balanced growth.
The approach to organising B20 activities has varied to some degree between different host years and continues to evolve. Participants in B20 activities have included CEOs and senior executives from companies across a broad spectrum of sectors, along with industry bodies.
Since the 2010 Seoul summit, the B20 has found it useful to form taskforces focused on issues that generally reflect the G20's priorities set by the host country. In 2012, for example, during Mexico's year as host, B20 taskforces focused on: food security; green growth; employment; improving transparency; trade and investment; information and communication technologies and innovation; and financing for growth and development.
Arrangements for the Russian B20 are well underway. A B20 meeting was held in Moscow in December 2012 and B20 taskforces have been established on: trade; financial systems; investment, infrastructure and development; job creation and investment in human capital; and transparency and anti-corruption. The major B20 summit will be held at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum in June 2013, ahead of the G20 leaders summit in September.
The B20 also engages with the work of other G20 stakeholders, including the Labour 20 (L20) and Think 20 (T20).