NEW DELHI : The Global South needs to discuss ways and means for countries to cooperate and act together to make our supply chains open, secure, trusted, stable, and equitable, thereby making them more resilient. Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Textiles, Shri Piyush Goyal was speaking at the 2^nd Voice of Global South Summit.

During India’s G 20 Presidency, the G20 generic framework for mapping global value chains was adopted to make GVCS resilient and inclusive, Shri Goyal said, adding that this framework has been prepared, keeping in mind how countries of the global south could not only become an integral part of was GVCS, but also move up the value chain to generate more prosperity for the people. 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.

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, Shri 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, adding that if we work together on this, we could accelerate 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 US dollars in 1995 to 5.3 trillion US dollars in 2021 had a major impact on economic growth and resilience of many countries.