The Business Bytes
TBB BUREAU
NEW DELHI, OCT 28, 2023
Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution and Textiles Piyush Goyal on Saturday urged the governments to collaborate on a regulatory framework to ease the movement of supply chains and facilitate cross border trade. He also recalled the Generic Framework for Mapping of GVCs mentioned in the New Delhi Declaration of the G20.
Speaking at the G7 Trade Ministers Meeting in Osaka, Japan today, Goyal highlighted the need for supply chain diversification and skilling and re-skilling of the personnel.
The Minister encouraged Public-Private partnership, investment in critical infrastructure and the need for innovation and digitalistion of the supply chains.
Goyal made an important intervention on the topic of Enhancing Supply Chain Resilience and gave several suggestions on the issue. He mentioned that the Covid-19 pandemic and the geo-political events highlighted the vulnerabilities of the existing supply chains leading to increase in commodity prices and global inflation.
During the Session representatives from the governments, private sector and the international organisations like OECD, WTO, etc. also participated. Most of the private sectors shared their positive experiences in developing resilient supply chains.
Suzuki made a presentation on their experience in India. Suzuki mentioned how they developed a reliable and trusted vendor base in India and achieved over 95% indigenisation in their supply chains in India. ERIA also mentioned a study conducted by them that showed the growing share of India in the global value chains.
Ministers from Australia, Chile, Indonesia and Kenya also made their interventions and shared suggestions on this topic.
Goyal also had bilateral engagements with several ministers. He met Nishimura Yasutoshi, Minister of Economy, Trade & Industry, Japan, Kemi Badenoch, Secretary of State for Business & Trade, UK, Don Farrell, Minister for Trade and Tourism, Australia, Katherine Tai, Ambassador, United States Trade Representative, and Udo Phillip, Secretary of State, Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs & Climate Action, Germany.
Important issues like enhancing bilateral trade, removal of non-tariff barriers, update on the status of the ongoing FTA negotiations and the upcoming WTO ministerial conference were discussed during the interactions.
Goyal also met Ngozi, Director General of WTO and Tatsuo Yasunagawa, Chairman, Mitsui, Japan and Japan-India Business Cooperation Committee (JIBCC).
G7 is an intergovernmental forum comprising seven important countries of the world. G7 accounts for over half of global network wealth, 30-43% of global GDP and 10% of world’s population. India is amongst the select countries that have been invited by G7 in this meeting of trade ministers in Osaka.
