MOTTLEY MEETS MACRON

PM WORKS WITH FRENCH PRESIDENT FOR FAIRER INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL SYSTEM

Barbados and France teamed up on Friday to lay plans to take on the global community in their fight for a just international financial system later this year.
On her first visit to France, Prime Minister Mia Mottley led a delegation to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron with whom she discussed preparation for the June 22-23 Summit for a New Global Financial Pact which seeks to lay the foundation for a more responsive, just and inclusive international financial system.
The two leaders noted that their countries share an ambition to see a fairer international system that addresses the financing needs of developing countries and vulnerable people and invests collectively in a just ecological transition worldwide.
It was against that background that they underlined the importance of the upcoming summit in bringing together views across continents – including diverse actors from civil society and the private sectors – and building a new pact on tangible solutions that will finance the fight against poverty and inequalities and the climate transition.
Prime Minister Mottley and President Macron discussed the first promising proposed solution, which builds on actions initiated by France and advanced by the G20 in recent years, and the ambitious proposals of the Barbados-led Bridgetown Initiative.
The aim is to address urgent liquidity needs through the greater sharing of International Monetary Fund (IMF) Special Drawing Rights, enlarged access to rapid credit facilities, more sustainable debt treatment, generation of investment needed for greater economic and social resilience, and the just transition to a low carbon world.
The Barbadian and French leaders also strongly support a substantial increase in lending by the World Bank and other multilateral development banks, a far greater direction of private capital to developing countries through new instruments, and debt sustainability rules that better fit the global realities of the 21st century.
Separately, the two leaders reiterated the importance of removing obstacles to and strengthening the regional integration of the French communities in the Caribbean – Guiana, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint Martin and Saint Barthélemy – contributing to the whole region’s development.
(BT/PMO)