Interview: Majority of G20 members back multilateralism, says senior Mexican official

MEXICO CITY, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- Most of the Group of 20 (G20) members continue to favor multilateralism, Mexican Deputy Finance Minister Miguel Messmacher told Xinhua here in a recent interview.

"A majority of us are championing and advocating multilateralism and international institutions ... That's the reason enough for us to continue to preserve and promote the group," he said in the lead-up to the upcoming G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The official, who coordinates Mexico's G20 affairs, said that after a decade of summitry, more agreements have been achieved among the group's developed and emerging economies.

"In general, the G20's role has been very good," especially taking into account its leadership through the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, he said. "I believe the outcome was quite favorable. There was a relatively rapid recovery."

Though it was created in 1999, the G20 took on greater importance following the crisis, as leaders focused on finding ways to shore up the world economy.

The Buenos Aires summit, to be held from Nov. 30 to Dec. 1, is expected to yield concrete measures on the subject of infrastructure, said Messmacher, who has been taking part in the pre-summit meetings.

"The idea in terms of infrastructure is to see how we can establish a series of international standards to put together and prepare infrastructure projects so they can be consolidated as an asset class," he said.

This year's G20 summit host, Argentina, has put infrastructure for development on the agenda. China has been very active in promoting infrastructure building, Messmacher said.

"Throughout, China has very much supported the idea of developing infrastructure projects around the world, and of the projects having third-party financing," he said.

Besides infrastructure, the summit is also expected to address the financial system, labor force training and other issues, he added.

"Despite these tense and complicated past couple of years in terms of international relations, what could turn out to be the most valuable is succeeding at keeping everyone at the table," he said.