BEIJING, March 22 (Xinhua) — “Global South” and “cooperation” were undoubtedly the keywords I heard most during the just concluded 2025 Global South Financiers Forum.
The three-day event, hosted by Xinhua News Agency from March 19 to 21, was attended by scholars and representatives of government departments, financial institutions, multinational firms, international organizations and media outlets from more than 30 countries and regions.
Focusing on topics such as the driving role of sci-tech innovation in capital development, the advancement of inclusive, green and digital finance development, and the dissemination of financial stories, the occasion could not have been more attractive to journalists covering economic news like me.
“The financial sector is the lifeblood of a nation’s economy,” reads a slogan on a wall in the Lize Financial Business District, a new financial cluster in Beijing where the forum was held.
This sentiment was reflected in the broad, insightful discussions that took place during the forum.
Many attendees acknowledged the crucial role of the financial sector in driving the growth of economies in the Global South, noting also that the Global South as a whole suffers from a lack of representation within international, Global-North-dominated financial architecture.
Countries in the Global South have achieved remarkable economic growth, which has not only injected stability and vitality into the world economy but also helped stabilize the global financial landscape, said Jiao Jie, dean of Tsinghua University’s PBC School of Finance.
The weight these countries carry in key global indices is increasing. Moreover, there is minor correlation between the yields of these countries and those of major developed economies, thus reducing the overall volatility of investment portfolios and providing essential opportunities for risk diversification among global investors, Jiao said.
But the Global South — a bloc of developing countries, emerging economies and the world’s least-developed nations — still faces a disparity between economic contributions and influence in the current international financial system. This was a key message I took from the forum.
“I see a big lack of representation of financiers from the Global South in the world,” said Yasiru Ranaraja, director of the Belt & Road Initiative Sri Lanka.
Marc Uzan, executive director of the Reinventing Bretton Woods Committee, told me in an interview that countries in the Global South have been highly concerned and very frustrated about the fact that their weight in the global economy has not been well-represented in Bretton Woods institutions.
Though they are from countries or regions at different development stages, representatives of the Global South financial community who attended the forum share one key belief: to bridge the North-South gap in international financial governance, it is essential that we step up communication, coordination and cooperation.
Another thing that impressed me at the forum was that attendees eagerly called for joint efforts to solve common challenges facing the Global South. These challenges include inadequate infrastructure, fragmented markets, high capital costs, weak industrial foundations, pronounced inequality, unequal access to technology, and, in particular, the ever-growing impacts of climate change.
Insufficient infrastructure, for example, has become a significant obstacle to progress for many countries in the Global South, according to Klaus-Dieter Kaempfer, chief executive of Absa China, who estimates that middle and low-income countries will need to invest approximately 2.7 trillion U.S. dollars annually to meet infrastructure demand by 2040.
At the forum, Global South financiers adopted a consensus document on promoting financial cooperation among the countries of the Global South.
The Global South financial community should work together to maintain global financial stability and advocate for a new international financial order that is more just, equitable and inclusive, according to the document.
The countries in the Global South are also urged to join hands to enhance the regulation and operations of their financial markets, and to bridge the financial development gap between the North and the South through knowledge sharing, talent training and technical assistance, per the document.
Cooperation and synergy among countries in the Global South are particularly crucial to addressing urgent issues that no nation can resolve alone, said Jonathan Titus-Williams, deputy minister of planning and economic development of Sierra Leone.
On the prospects of Global South financial cooperation, Titus-Williams said that he sees a great future ahead. ■
