The G20 Trade and Investment Ministers in Jaipur produced an outcome document with all countries agreeing to work voluntarily towards Global Value Chain (GVC) mapping, enhancing MSME’s access to information and putting in place non-binding high-level principles on digitalisation of trade documents.
But a joint communique remained elusive as there was disagreement between members on criticism of the Russian war on Ukraine.
“The outcomes that we have come up with today agreed by the entire group of Ministers is actually one of the most significant outcomes that we have in the G20,” Commerce & Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said at a media briefing following the conclusion of the meeting on Friday in Jaipur.
While India and several developing country members are opposed to the Joint Statement Initiative (JSI) plurilateral talks (including only some members) on investment facilitation and e-commerce at the WTO, the outcome document acknowledged the discussions with a caveat.
“We emphasise the significance of targeted investments in logistics infrastructure and services to enhance supple chain resilence…The G20 members that are participants in the JSI on Investment Facilitation for Development, and/or in the JSI on e-commerce at WTO underscore the positive role these initiatives can play in this regard,” it said.
The document also noted the concerns expressed in rule-making through JSI by some G20 members that are not participants in them.
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The decisions on GVC mapping, MSME integration and digitalisation taken by the G20 Trade Ministers will be taken forward by Brazil which will take over the G20’s rotating Presidency from India on December 1, the Minister said.
“They (Brazil) have welcomed the three significant outcomes and the overall debate and decisions that happened during the Ministerial and have committed to take forward these ideas. All of them will require a lot of hard work in the years to come,” Goyal said.
GVCs and MSMEs
The outcome document noted that GVCs in some sectors faced challenges in responding to disruptions. “We believe that a mapping framework can help members identify opportunities for building resilience within GVCs. We thus endorse voluntary and non-binding ‘G20 Generic Framework for Mapping GVCs’,” the document noted.
To enhance MSMEs’ access to information, the G20 nations issued the ‘Jaipur Call for Action’. It calls for necessary steps towards increasing the availability of market and trade related information to them in an accessible manner.
“In this regard, G20 members note that it will also be conducive to other ongoing international efforts on MSMEs,including at WTO, UNCTAD and other fora” the document noted. On digitalisation of trade documents, the outcome document mentions ten non-binding principles. These include neutrality, security, trust, interoperability, data privacy, reliability, voluntary sharing of data, collaboration, traceability and scalability.
“Preparing the framework and ensuring that MSMEs get data and adequate information using these high level principles of digitalisation are challenging tasks. But all the member countries have agreed to work collectively for its success,” the Minister said.
The paragraph which Russia and China opposed to was related to sharp criticism of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Disagreement over the matter resulted in failure of other G20 meetings, including one of Finance Ministers and Central Bank governors in Gandhinagar last month and the Foreign Ministers meeting in Delhi in March, to produce joint communiques.
(The writer was at Jaipur at the invitation of the Commerce & Industry Ministry)