The Outcome Document and Chair Summary that was issued at the end of the two-day meeting was agreed to by all the participants.
The G-20 trade and investment ministers on Friday agreed to an action plan on mapping global value chains, increasing participation of smaller industries in exports and digitisation of trade documents to further global trade.
The Outcome Document and Chair Summary that was issued at the end of the two-day meeting was agreed to by all the participants. However, differing views and assessments of the Russia-Ukraine situation prevented the issuance of a joint communique.
“We are working towards understanding where the problems in global value chains (GVCs) are and what needs to be done,” commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal said at a media briefing.
The G20 members endorsed the voluntary and non-binding ‘G-20 Generic Framework for Mapping GVCs’. The framework should be based on collecting timely high-quality sector-level data and voluntarily provided firm-level data, the outcome document said.
“It takes care of data, takes care of analysis, takes care of concentration of suppliers and markets. It addresses concerns around volatility of trade volume and value. It also looks at upstream and downstream product needs or industry needs. It addresses the criticality of seamless flow of goods through the value chain, and also looks at connectivity,” Goyal said.
Apart from strengthening GVCs by identifying vulnerabilities and making them diverse, the other aim of the mapping is to make developing and least-developed countries part of these chains.
For inclusion of MSMEs in global trade, the Jaipur Call of Action suggested steps to address the information gap on trade and market-related issues they are faced with.
The G20 trade ministers agreed that the global trade helpdesk implemented by the International Trade Centre (ITC) is suited for such an upgrade. They also decided to recommend the ITC to work on a detailed action plan.
G20 members were called upon to provide trade-related information relevant for MSMEs available on a single portal or a non-exhaustive list of links to relevant websites for smaller companies engaged in trade.
To reduce the cost of trade, the G-20 agreed to digitisation of trade documents as paperwork takes substantial time and cost, and is prone to errors.
On the WTO reform, the G20 reaffirmed its commitment to conducting discussions with a view to having a fully and well-functioning dispute settlement system accessible to all the members by 2024. The dispute settlement of the WTO is not fully functional since the end of 2019 as the US is not agreeing to the appointment of members to the appellate body because of which many cases are pending. “We will continue to work constructively to ensure positive outcomes, including an WTO reform, at the WTO’s 13th ministerial conference (MC),” the outcome document said.
Source:financialexpress.com