G20 Trade Ministers Forge New Agreements At Jaipur Meeting
The G20 Trade and Investment Ministers’ meeting led by Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, and Textiles, successfully concluded in Jaipur, India. The meeting saw active participation from G20 members, invited countries and international organizations, including the World Trade Organization (WTO), UNCTAD, International Trade Centre and OECD.
Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi emphasized G20’s role in rebuilding international trade and investment confidence. He highlighted the need for resilient global value chains and greater involvement of MSMEs in global trade, reaffirming India’s belief in a rule-based, multilateral trading system with the WTO at its core.
Under India’s presidency, the G20 Trade and Investment Ministerial achieved a groundbreaking consensus on five action-oriented deliverables. These outcomes include the adoption of High-Level Principles for digitalizing trade documents, a Jaipur Call for Action to enhance MSMEs’ information access, endorsement of a G20 Generic Mapping Framework for Global Value Chains (GVCs), support for sharing best practices on Mutual Recognition Agreements (MRAs) for professional services and plans for a G20 Standards Dialogue in 2023.The outcomes received widespread support from G20 ministers and were further reinforced by Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director General, World Trade Organization. She urged the G20 ministers to establish realistic deliverables for the WTO’s 13th Ministerial Conference in 2024, emphasizing the essential role of the multilateral trading system.
The Outcome Document and Chair Summary of the meeting are accessible on the G20 website (https://www.g20.org/en/), marking a significant step forward in fostering international trade and investment cooperation.
