G-20 Members to Focus on Services for Enlarge Global Trade

Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu led the Indian delegation for the G-20 Trade Ministers Meeting (TMM) held at Mar del Plata, Argentina on 14 September 2018. The G-20 TMM was represented by Ministers/Vice Ministers of G20 countries, 8 guest countries and 7 Heads/Deputy Heads of International Organisations such as WTO, ITC, OECD, World Bank, IMF, CAF and IADB. As Argentina is the President of G-20 this year, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Argentina, Mr. Jorge Faurie and Minister for Production and Labour, Mr. Dante Sica jointly chaired the Sessions. The overall objective of the Argentine Presidency of G-20 is ‘Building Consensus for Fair and Sustainable Development’.

The programme of the G-20 TMM included a breakfast meeting to facilitate free exchange of views on the current global trade developments and three plenary sessions on specific topics of the agenda on current international trade developments, trade and investment aspects of Agro Food Global Value Chains (GVCs) and trade and investment aspects of the New Industrial Revolution (NIR).

Indian Commerce and Industry Minister underlined that as developing countries and LDCs suffer consequential collateral damage due to trade conflicts, resolution of differences through dialogue between the parties should be promoted.

The Ministers held a common view that the worldwide trade and economic circumstance was at a basic stage because of the progressing exchange pressures, driven to a great extent by protectionist and one-sided measures by a few nations and made plans to aggregately move in the direction of improving trust in global exchange through discourse and joint efforts.

Indian Commerce and Industry Minister underlined that as developing nations and LDCs endure noteworthy inadvertent blow-back because of exchange clashes, goals of contrasts through discourse between the countries ought to be increased.

He encouraged G-20 to change the story on exchange by concentrating on the capability of Services for improving the worldwide exchange, keeping in see that Services contribute over half to the World GDP. Supporting India's pledge to the manage based multilateral exchanging framework, Suresh Prabhu called for aggregate activity for renewing WTO without undermining its center standards of uncommon and differential treatment, agreement building, comprehensiveness and straightforwardness. Most individuals reviewed the fruitful WTO Mini Ministerial gathering held in New Delhi in March 2018 as India's huge commitment to the revitalisation of WTO.

The Ministers recognised the importance of Agro Food GVCs for enhancing global food security. Suresh Prabhu underlined the relevance of keeping in focus realisation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030 targets relating to removal of hunger, alleviation of poverty, empowerment of women, employment generation, without losing sight of the plight of millions of small and marginal farmers in developing countries and LDCs. He further drew attention to the need for tackling non-tariff barriers in the form of SPS measures that are more trade distorting than tariffs. He urged G-20 to support transfer of technology, research, promote agri services and responsible investment in agri businesses with an aim to encouraging greater value addition for MSMEs.

On the New Industrial Revolution, Ministers acknowledged the central role of digital technologies. Commerce & Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu  drew attention to the need for minimising technology disruptions and promoting distributive gains for the collective good of all countries and, in this regard, he  urged G-20 to work towards closing gaps in the digital divide within and across nations through capacity building measures, technology adaptation and meaningful investments to give primacy to protection and promotion of domestic entrepreneurs with an aim to job creation for millions of youth. He underlined the need for a holistic approach to the NIR, one that is inclusive and development oriented.