'Jobs and growth' are the medicine the world needs, Johnson tells G7

LONDON: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Group of Seven leaders on Friday that the battered world economy needed to be rebuilt after the COVID-19 pandemic with an ambitious plan to tackle climate change that would create millions of new jobs.

The COVID-19 pandemic has killed 2.4 million people, tipped the global economy into its worst peacetime slump since the Great Depression and upended normal life for billions.

"Jobs and growth is what we're going to need after this pandemic," Johnson told the opening of the G7 leaders' meeting - Joe Biden's first as US President.

Biden will discuss plans to defeat the coronavirus, reopen the world economy and counter challenges posed by China, the White House said.

Johnson welcomed newcomers Biden and Mario Draghi, Italy's new prime minister.

But the "mute curse" which has stilted video calls for millions of businesses and families over the past months of COVID-19 lockdown also interrupted the G7 leaders meeting.

As Johnson began the meeting, a German voice suddenly interrupted him.

"Can you hear us Angela," Johnson quipped to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, chuckling. "I think you need to mute."

The call is a chance for Biden, a Democrat who took over as president from Republican Donald Trump on Jan. 20, to project a message of re-engagement with the world and with global institutions after four years of his predecessor's "America First" policies.

VACCINE DRIVE

Britain, which holds the rotating chair of the G7 and is trying to recast itself as a steward of the rules-based international system following Brexit, will ask members to help speed up the development of future vaccines to 100 days.

Johnson is keen to build ties with Biden, who did not support Brexit and who, as a presidential candidate, last year publicly warned Britain against endangering peace in Ireland.

Johnson has said he is interested in the idea of a global treaty on pandemics to ensure proper transparency after the COVID-19 outbreak which was first identified in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

The Biden administration will pledge $4 billion to COVAX, a coronavirus vaccination programme for poorer countries, in hopes of prying loose bigger donations from other governments, US officials said on Thursday.

The EU will offer at the G7 call this afternoon to double its contribution to COVAX to 1 billion euros and it will also promise 100 million euros in "in-kind" help to Africa for the vaccination process, an EU official said.

Britain, which has pledged 548 million pounds ($766 million) to the COVAX program co-led by the World Health Organization, will ask other G7 partners to give more.

CHINA

China will also be on the agenda.

In his first major foreign policy speech as president, Biden cast China as the "most serious competitor" of the United States.

"We'll confront China's economic abuses; counter its aggressive, coercive action; to push back on China's attack on human rights, intellectual property, and global governance," Biden said on Feb. 4.

Johnson said the G7 - as "like-minded liberal free-trading democracies" - stood together on issues such as condemnation of the coup in Myanmar and the detention of Alexei Navalny in Russia.

The G7 of the United States, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy and Canada has a combined gross domestic product of about $40 trillion - a little less than half of the global economy.