Voices of Emerging Economies Growing on Global Stage

The U.S.-led financial crisis has changed the seating arrangement for heads of state at a global summit.

A closer look at where each leader from the world’s 20 largest economies was seated at the G20 financial summit Saturday shows the change in the international order in the wake of the global economic crisis, the New York Times said yesterday.

The daily took notice of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva being seated to the right of U.S. President George W. Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao’s position to the left at a White House dinner. This is a startling illustration of the way the crisis has remade the international economic world order, the newspaper said.

To Lula’s right sat Indonesia’s Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Mexico’s Felipe Calderon. To Hu’s left sat Saudi Arabia`s King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, France’s Nicolas Sarkozy and Korea’s Lee Myung-bak.

The leaders of advanced economies such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy, who are blamed for triggering the financial crisis along with the United States, sat at a distance from Bush.

When the leaders posed for a photo, those from emerging economies stood near Bush and leaders of Group of Seven advanced countries such as Canada, Italy, and Japan stood on the sides in the back row.

Emerging economies are gaining growing voices amid the crisis, including Brazil, the chaircountry of the summit, China, whose status is rising as a political and economic powerhouse, and oil-rich Saudi Arabia.

myzodan@donga.com