World leaders, including Donald Trump, will head to Manchester next year for the G20 leaders’ summit.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who is the former mayor of Greater Manchester, said he was “really pleased” he would be welcoming the US president to the city.
The G20 summit, an annual gathering of the world’s biggest economies, will take place on 27 and 28 November 2027 at the Manchester Central Convention Centre. It will be the largest summit ever held in the city.
Manchester was chosen earlier this year, prior to Burnham becoming prime minister. Downing Street said preparations will now step up, with hundreds of local people expected to be involved.
In June, as it looked likely Burnham would become prime minister, Trump called him “the mayor of a town”.
Burnham told reporters that in the first phone call between the pair, he told the president: “Manchester isn’t ‘some town’…this is Manchester”. He said the “right thing to do” was to laugh about it and “move beyond it”.
When he was mayor, Burnham told the Manchester Evening News, external that he “wouldn’t welcome” a visit from the American president.
But on his way to New York, where he will meet Trump for the first time on Tuesday, he said “politicians say things throughout their career, but now the important thing is to focus on the moment you are in”.
Speaking to the BBC, Councillor Garry Bridges, the new leader of Manchester City Council, said an event like this would have been “unthinkable a couple of years ago” and that he hoped it would change Trump’s perception of Manchester.
The UK has hosted the G20 before, in 2009 in London. The cost of the security operation at the time was estimated at £7.2m.
As well as the summit in Manchester, there will be events across the country next year as the UK takes on the G20 presidency.
The presidency is currently held by the United States, with this year’s summit taking place in Miami in December.
The G20 brings together 19 of the world’s largest economies, plus representatives from the European Union and the African Union.
It represents about two-thirds of the world’s entire population and more than 85% of the world’s wealth.
The annual event was first set up in 1999 with the aim of promoting financial stability and cooperation.
