The agenda: G20 meet to focus on fair, transparent, and inclusive trade

Accelerating global trade to mitigate poverty and income inequality, and making growth more inclusive will be one of the key focus areas in the G20’s trade and investment working group that will kick-start next week in Mumbai.

Under India’s G20 Presidency, the working group will also emphasise on increasing the participation of developing countries in the value chains, and building resilient global value chains to withstand future shocks, senior commerce department officials said on Friday.

The trade and investment working group will be chaired by Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal. The three-day meeting, starting March 28, will see participation of 100 delegates from G20 member-countries, invitee countries, regional groupings, and international organisations.

Under the working group, five priority areas have been identified — trade for growth and prosperity, trade and resilient value chains, integrating MSMEs in global trade, logistics for trade, and World Trade Organization (WTO) reforms.

“Since India has done so well in developing internal logistics through the PM GatiShakti, there should be better integration internationally. Since we have a strong digital system for trade within India, we would also like to see if we can build a similar kind of network with other countries,” Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal told reporters.

The meeting will focus on all the areas barring WTO-related matters that will be taken up at a later stage.

India will also try to build consensus on leveraging digital technology to overcome these barriers to hasten integration of MSMEs in global trade.

This comes in the backdrop of MSMEs being underrepresented in global trade. Some of the main challenges that impede the integration of these small businesses in global trade include access to trade-related information, finance, and markets.

“Under India’s Presidency, the aim is to build a shared understanding of the challenges being faced in accelerating global trade and investment, and how existing opportunities can be harnessed for the benefit of humanity following the motto of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam and find common solutions,” an official statement said.

On the first day, a seminar on ‘Trade Finance’ will be held, where the role of banks, financial institutions, development finance institutions and export credit agencies in closing the trade finance gap will be discussed. Apart from that, how digitalisation and fintech solutions can improve access to trade finance, will be discussed through panel discussions.

The next two meetings of the working group will take place in Kevadia, Bengaluru, followed by a ministerial meeting chaired by commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal in August.

The Agenda

Mitigating poverty and income inequality through trade  

Increasing participation of developing countries in the value chains 

Building resilient global value chains to withstand future shocks