Group of Seven trade ministers concluded a two-day meeting in Osaka with calls for a successful World Trade Organization 13th ministerial conference and cooperation on combating unfair trade practices by China.
In a joint statement Sunday, the ministers called for creating a dedicated space at the World Trade Organization to talk about trade and state intervention in industry. The ministers expressed concern about “nonmarket policies and practices” that “are an integral part of comprehensive strategies to pursue global market dominance.”
The statement didn’t name any country, but US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said the ministers were talking about China.
“Clearly we’re primarily preoccupied with China and its economic system, ” she said. “We each have our way of talking about China. For some, we name the practices, we don’t name the country.”
Following are excerpts from the ministers’ statement issued October 29:
We continue to condemn in the strongest possible terms Russia’s brutal, unprovoked, unjustifiable and illegal war of aggression against Ukraine. We recall the G7 Leaders’ commitment to addressing Ukraine’s recovery needs at the Hiroshima Summit and reaffirmed our strong commitment to support Ukraine’s recovery through trade.
Reforming the WTO and Supporting a Successful 13th WTO Ministerial Conference: Building on the G7 Hiroshima Leaders' Communiqué of May, we will work towards substantial WTO reform, including conducting discussions with the view to having a fully and well-functioning dispute settlement (DS) system accessible to all members by 2024.
Recognizing the crucial role of plurilateral initiatives to revitalize the rule-making function of the WTO, we welcome progress under the Joint Statement Initiatives (JSIs), including on E-Commerce and the conclusion of the text-based negotiations of the Agreement on Investment Facilitation for Development. We also underscore the importance of early completion of the certification procedure of the disciplines on Services Domestic Regulations. We strongly support incorporating the outcomes of JSIs into the legal framework of the WTO.
We reaffirm the importance of making permanent the Moratorium on Customs Duties on Electronic Transmission.
Ensuring a Level Playing Field: On industrial subsidies, … we share the need for further discussion on suitable means to more effectively address, including under the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, the opaque and trade-distortive subsidies provided by SOEs, including investment funds controlled in substance by the State.
On SOEs, … we are increasingly concerned by some countries’ pervasive use of SOEs to channel State support and to produce key industrial goods in an unfair manner.
We express our renewed concerns on forced technology transfers, which are fundamentally unfair and inconsistent with an international trading system based on market principles.
Supply Chain Resilience: We welcome the first discussion on supply chain resilience in a G7 Trade Ministerial meeting involving partners from both the private sector and governments beyond the G7. We note with concern the recent export control measures on critical minerals.
Economic Coercion: We are firmly committed to upholding the free, fair, open and transparent economy driven by market principles. We will therefore enhance our collective efforts in communication to boost business preparedness against economic coercion.
Digital Trade:
We recognize the significance of the WTO JSI on E-Commerce negotiations in international rule-making. We are committed to working towards substantial conclusion by the end of 2023. We remain committed to tackling unjustified data localization measures that lack transparency and are arbitrarily imposed, which should be distinguished from measures implemented to achieve legitimate regulatory goals.
We welcome the OECD Declaration on Government Access to Personal Data Held by Private Sector Entitiesas an important tool to increase trust in, and facilitate, cross-border data flows. We encourage governments and industry to continue to build awareness of and confidence in digital trade documents.
Trade and Environment/Climate Change: As Trade Ministers, we reaffirm that trade and environment policies should be mutually supportive, consistent with the WTO and multilateral environmental agreements. We welcome work at the WTO, including in the Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE) as well as the Trade and Environmental Sustainability Structured Discussions (TESSD), in seeking to identify opportunities and approaches to support such facilitation and promotion efforts, including identification of non-tariff barriers and regulatory approaches. We will deepen engagement with those beyond the G7, including developing countries and LDCs, on these matters.
We will pursue policies that drive decarbonization and emissions reduction in line with our common goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 at the latest, and also help to address the risk of carbon leakage, by spurring markets to account for embedded emissions in traded goods. We will cooperate, to the extent possible, to ensure international consistency of methodologies to measure embedded emissions.
Business and Human Rights: We reaffirm the G7 Trade Ministers’ Statement in September 2022 and the G7 Trade Ministers’ Statement on Forced Labor in October 2021, and recommit to taking measures to eradicate all forms of forced labor and child labor in global supply chains and recognize the relevance of measures that support corporate due diligence to this effect.
We further reiterate our commitment to strengthening outreach and engagement on business and human rights beyond the G7.
Strengthening Engagement with Emerging and Developing Economies and Trade and Development:. We acknowledge discussions of proposals on trade for development in the WTO.
In order to enhance inclusivity in the Multilateral Trading System, it is essential to develop infrastructure and capacity that enable developing countries, notably LDCs, to participate in the Multilateral Trading System.
We call on WTO members to promote best practices for facilitating the movement of humanitarian goods. With an estimated 345 million people experiencing acute food insecurity, the world is also facing the largest food and nutrition crisis in modern history, which threatens the very basis of development. While there are many underlying factors, the crisis has been compounded by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, which has severely disrupted agricultural and food production and trade.
We reiterate and affirm the importance of import restrictions on food products being science-based and only applied in accordance with WTO and other international rules. In this context, the G7 members strongly call for the immediate repeal of any such measures that unnecessarily restrict trade, including the newly introduced import restrictions on Japanese food products.
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