The Group of 20 has added the African Union as a permanent are to member while countries from three continents unveil an infrastructure linkage to boost trade.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened the G20 summit in New Delhi Saturday by calling for the approval of the AU's membership.

South Africa is the only African member state of G20. With the AU in its fold, 54 other countries in the continent become part of the economic bloc.

The region's gross domestic product value of $3 trillion and 1.4 billion population is significant.

Excluding the AU, the G20's 19 countries and the European Union represent 85 percent of the world GDP.

The bloc was conceived in the throes of the 2008 financial crisis as a way of managing the global economy, but finding consensus among members has been increasingly difficult in recent years.

The AU membership could be among the most tangible outcomes from the summit itself, with Modi trying to forge consensus on a host of contentious issues, and key G20 members deeply divided over Russia's war in Ukraine and how to pay for climate change.

Meanwhile, Europe, the Middle East and India will on Saturday unveil plans to create a modern-day Spice Route, boosting trade ties with potentially wide-ranging geopolitical implications.

The United States, Saudi Arabia, the European Union, the United Arab Emirates and others will launch plans to link data, railway, ports, electricity networks and hydrogen pipelines across the three regions when they meet on the sidelines of the summit.

Signatories hope it can help integrate India's vast market of 1.4 billion people with countries to the west, offer a counterbalance to lavish Chinese infrastructure spending, boost Middle Eastern economies and help normalize relations between Israel and Arab Gulf states.

Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, South Asia practice head at the Eurasia Group, said that a shipping container which today travels from Mumbai, through the Suez Canal to Europe could in the future go by rail from Dubai to Haifa in Israel  — saving both money and time — and on to Europe.

WITH AFP