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Amid continued differences in positions on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, India is hopeful of a consensus among the Group of Twenty (G20) nations on the five key trade and investment issues that countries have been deliberating since the beginning of the week in Jaipur.
“There is a possibility of a ‘good outcome document’,” Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said, adding that there are realities on which consensus is not possible.
In the past, the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, two meetings of the Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting, as well as the Energy Transition Meeting in July, ended without a joint communiqué due to diplomatic tussles between the West and Russia over the war in Ukraine.
“We are confident that tomorrow (Thursday) and the day after the ministerial meeting, we will come up with a concrete, actionable agenda that will help the world withstand any future shocks,” the minister told reporters.
The two-day G20 Trade and Investment Ministerial Meeting, starting Thursday, is being held in Jaipur. The meeting was preceded by the fourth and final Trade and Investment Working Group meeting under India’s G20 Presidency on August 21-22.
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Government officials told Business Standard that even as the meeting of the officials from all the G20 nations has been making good progress, uncertainty continues regarding whether there will be a joint communiqué at the end of the ministerial meeting on Friday, considering past trends.
During the working group meetings that started in March, five priority areas were identified: trade for growth and prosperity, resilient trade and global value chains (GVCs), integrating micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) into world trade, logistics for trade, and World Trade Organization reforms.
“We have been able to come up with significant consensus among member countries, invoking a Jaipur ‘Call for Action’. It will help promote the industry, the MSME sector, upgrade the global trade helpdesk, and bridge information gaps for MSMEs to help them expand their business and trade,” said Goyal.
There have also been deliberations on formulating high-level principles for the digitalisation of trade and trade facilitation since technology has profoundly impacted the way cross-border trade is undertaken. In this regard, India has been advocating for a paperless trading system to further reduce transaction costs, make smaller shipments more cost-effective, and enable the internationalisation of operations at a lower cost.
G20 nations also aim to remove bottlenecks that impede the integration of MSMEs in international trade. Furthermore, as 70 per cent of the world trade occurs through GVCs, the trade and investment working group has been deliberating on developing a mapping framework that could make GVCs resilient towards future shocks.
