Emergency G20 video summit must come up with the goods

At a time when country after country has come to a virtual standstill and billions of people are being told to stay indoors, the special G20 video summit being hosted by Saudi Arabia on Thursday cannot be a virtual meet-and-greet for the leaders of the developed and major developing countries.

Instead, the leaders should use it to come up with a practical, coordinated response to address the novel coronavirus pandemic and its effects.

This is no time for dilly-dallying and the usual jostling for advantage. The pandemic continues to take a heavy toll on countries around the world, and it will have a huge impact on the global economy, which is set to slip into negative growth this year－"a recession at least as bad as during the global financial crisis or worse", International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva warned on Monday.