G20 ministers to reach broad consensus: Goyal

Jaipur: Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday exuded confidence that the G20 ministers of trade and investment would be able to reach a broad consensus on all trade-related issues at the two-day meeting here.

Representatives of the G20 countries have gathered here for the two-day trade and investment ministerial meeting. They are deliberating on five priority areas of trade for growth and prosperity, trade and resilient global value chain, integrating MSMEs in global trade, logistics for trade, and World Trade Organisation (WTO) reforms. On the first day of the ministers’ meeting here, the discussions centred on the topic of ‘Multilateral Trade for Global Growth and Prosperity’ which included exchange of views on how trade can work for developing nations and reforms in the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

The second session of the day was ‘Inclusive and Resilient Trade’ which focussed on the issues of trade and resilient value global value chains and integrating Micro Small and Medium industries in world trade. “There has been significant progress in the deliberations at various levels to come up with a strong outcome document and I have the confidence looking at the first session this morning that we will all be able to agree on a broad consensus on all trade-related issues where we can all come out with a strong outcome document and chairs’ text reflecting the desire of the whole world to see greater prosperity across continents,” Goyal told reporters here. On the last day of the meeting on Friday, a session on Leveraging Technology for Paperless Trade is scheduled and the curtains will come down on the discussions with the adoption of the G-20 Trade and Investment Ministerial statement. Logistics for trade include reliability of international trade and cargo operations, developing logistics infrastructure and promoting international paperless transactions that would reduce transaction costs.