"Global South Nations Need To...": Minister Piyush Goyal On "Monumental Challenges"

Global south countries need to discuss ways to make supply chains open, secure, trusted and equitable, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Friday.

Speaking at the second Voice of Global South Summit, he said the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact of climate change and raging geopolitical tensions have disrupted and underscored the fragility of global supply chains.

These disruptions have created monumental challenges of food and energy security, cost of living and achievement of the sustainable development goals, Goyal added.

"We would like to discuss ways and means for countries of the global south to cooperate and act together to make our supply chains open, secure, trusted, stable, and equitable, thereby making them more resilient," he said.

During India's G20 presidency, the G20 generic framework for mapping global value chains (GVCs) was adopted to make these chains resilient and inclusive, he noted.

This framework has been prepared, keeping in mind how countries of the global south could not only become an integral part of GVCs but also move up the value chain to generate more prosperity for the people, the minister said.

"With respect to the global south, the first need is to identify global value chains, where each of the countries could focus on not only increasing their participation but also improving the quality of their participation by moving up the value chain," Goyal said, adding that this will help them to partake, the largest share of high value-added parts of the GVCs.

Emphasising the importance of increasing the digitalisation of trade documents, he said it is seen that irrespective of digitalisation, documents critical for international trade are still not digitalised.

"...implementation of electronic bill of lading, a vital document, for enabling smoother international trade can itself lead to savings of nearly six and a half billion dollars in direct costs," he said.

In this regard, the G20 has adopted 10 high-level principles for the digitalisation of trade documents.

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