India’s 4-point action plan can make Global South a key player in supply chain: Piyush Goyal

The Global South needs to discuss ways and means for countries to act together to ensure that our supply chains are more open, secure and resilient, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Friday at the 2nd Voice of Global South Summit.

Goyal said that the crisis of Covid-19 pandemic, 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, he added.

During India’s G 20 presidency, the G20 generic framework for mapping global value chains (GVCs) was adopted to make them more resilient and inclusive. He said that the 4-point 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.

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 remarked. This will help them to partake, largest share of high value added parts of the GVCs.

Secondly, he said, it will help GVCs to withstand both natural and manmade shocks.

Thirdly, better integration of our micro small and medium enterprises in international markets and trade.

Finally, it will help us to visualise gaps in our logistics infrastructure.

The filling up of these critical gaps would help further integration and participation of the global south in global trade, he said.

The framework promotes transparency and confidence amongst all stakeholders, as well as allows anticipation and estimation of potential risks embedded within value chains, he said.

He pointed out that the key building blocks of the framework are data analysis and representation.

By incorporating this building blocks, the framework can help in the identification of sectors and products critical to GVC resilience for each of the countries.

He urged the participating countries to adopt this mapping framework as they undertake an exercise to assess their abilities and their GVCs both at the sector and product level as well as identify opportunities that will open up, he said, adding that this framework, once implemented, has the potential to address four key concerns related to resilience and inclusivity.

“If we work together on this, we could accelerate the transformative impact that solves our trade can have in the overall growth and prosperity and also specifically on achieving sustainable development goals. For example, the phenomenal nine-fold increase in South-South trade from $600 billion in 1995 to $5.3 trillion in 2021 had a major impact on economic growth and resilience of many countries,” he added.

Goyal pointed out that India successfully hosted the G 20 Summit in Delhi in September, under the theme “one earth, one family and one future” with the support of the Global South.

During its presidency, India made strong interventions in strengthening the voice of the global south including by making the African Union a permanent member of the grouping and by galvanising concrete action oriented, G 20 outcomes for the Global South, he said.

It is necessary to make further efforts to strengthen the voice of the global south and to come together for our and humanity’s future, the minister added.