The Intex Osaka convention center in the city's waterfront area will host next year's Group of 20 leaders' summit. | KYODO

2019 G-20 summit to be held on June 28-29, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga announced

by Eric Johnston

Staff Writer

OSAKA - The 2019 Group of 20 leaders’ summit in Osaka will take place on June 28 and 29, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga announced Monday.

Next year’s summit marks the first time the G-20 will be held in Japan. Leaders including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, U.S. President Donald Trump, and Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend, along with those from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the European Union.

The G-20 will be the largest international summit to take place in Osaka and the Kansai region since the 1995 conference of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, which was also held in the city.

The 2019 summit is expected to focus on international finance and economic issues and global themes related to the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Pressing regional security and economic issues will likely be discussed in bilateral, trilateral, and multilateral side meetings during the gathering.

Around 30,000 participants including delegation members and international journalists and NGO representatives are expected for the summit, which will take place at the Intex Osaka convention center in the city’s waterfront district.

Security is expected to be heavy, especially in Osaka’s Umeda district, where many luxury hotels are located and where a number of leaders and their delegations are expected to stay. On Monday, the Osaka Prefectural Police launched a G-20 summit task force that will begin security preparations.

In addition to the Osaka leaders’ summit, separate G-20 ministerial meetings are planned. They include one for finance ministers and central bankers in Fukuoka, a foreign ministers’ gathering in Aichi Prefecture, an agricultural ministers’ meeting in Niigata, a meeting on renewable energy in Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture, and a ministerial meeting on trade and the digital economy that will take place in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture.

There will also be a tourism ministers’ meeting in the village of Kutchan, Hokkaido, next to Niseko.

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