New Delhi: Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal on Monday during the 13th Brics trade minister meeting held under the BRICS Presidency of South Africa virtually, extended strong support to the BRICS spirit of equality, openness, inclusiveness, consensus, mutual respect and understanding.
Goyal stressed building trust among each other and expressed strong belief in small, achievable, incremental steps towards WTO Reform. He also said India wishes to see invigorated, improved, inclusive WTO as it completes three decades, talking about ’30 for 30’, which is an effort to bring at least 30 operational improvements to the WTO before the Organization completes 30 years by 1 January 2025.
The theme of BRICS this year is “BRICS and Africa: Partnership for Mutually Accelerated Growth, Sustainable Development and Inclusive Multilateralism”. Goyal touched upon issues related to WTO, Supply chain, Digitalisation, MSMEs and on the issue of Mispricing and under-invoicing in the meeting.
The Minister lauded the South African Presidency for having an ambitious Agenda and successfully completing outcome-oriented activities under the Contact Group on Economic and Trade Issues (CGETI). He extended strong support to the BRICS spirit of equality, openness, inclusiveness, consensus, mutual respect and understanding.
Reflecting India’s efforts to meet its commitments towards global efforts to fight climate-related challenges, Goyal apprised the BRICS Member countries about India’s achievement and its recent ranking at 5th position as per Climate Change Performance Index, published by German Watch. In this context, he also mentioned that India was the only G20 country in the top 10 ranks. As BRICS members are also a part of G20, he sought cooperation for significant outcomes under the ‘Trade and Investment Working Group’ of G20 under India’s Presidency.
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Goyal also made it clear that for collective efforts amongst the BRICS countries, the utmost important issue would be to work in a trust-based open atmosphere through transparency and sharing information. In this context, he also expressed disappointment that even within BRICS membership, a few members had expressed concerns about transparency.
On Supply Chains, Goyal noted that the principles of trust and transparency along with security and diversification are the most important factors for resilient and robust supply chains. This will be the foundation for an ensuring early warning system amongst BRICS countries which would play an important role in preventing wide-ranging disruptions as were experienced during Covid 19.
The Minister expressed his concern about the negative impact trade mispricing and under-invoicing have on the economies. He even mentioned that India had acknowledged its importance under its Chairship in 2021 and included it as an outcome through Capacity Building Workshop. He stressed the importance of collaborative efforts and commitment along with resilience, unity and transparency to face challenges under the principles of compassion, empathy and understanding, for a common brighter future.
During a telephone conversation last week, South African President Ramaphosa invited PM Modi to the BRICS Summit being hosted by South Africa on August 22-24 and briefed him on the preparations for the same. PM accepted the invitation and conveyed that he looked forward to his visit to Johannesburg to participate in the Summit.
