The Union Minister was addressing the inaugural session of the ICRIER's 13th Annual International G-20 Conference

While calling for pursuing a more inclusive and equitable agenda at the G20, Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal on Wednesday said the pandemic has remodeled several priorities of the G20 countries.

“We must keep rethinking, reimagining and recreating our own processes and thinking to be an important stakeholder in a new world order,” Piyush Goyal said.

“For the next few years, developing countries like ours will be leading the organization, Indonesia next year, followed by India. It is a unique opportunity for all of us to inject a more inclusive and equitable agenda at the G20. By acting in tandem in this “Decade of Action”, G20 will play a pivotal role to achieve all SDGs. We have to strengthen global institutions which are more representative & inclusive e.g. WTO, UNFCCC etc. We have to build synergies with like-minded partners to bring out a strong statement on Climate Action,” he added.

In this interconnected and interdependent world, no one is safe until everyone is safe. And towards that end a greater degree of global economic coordination is the need of the hour, “we are all equally responsible to make that happen. It’s imperative to tackle this pandemic on the one hand, to ensure vaccination for everybody, - rich or poor, all countries, all citizens of the world and also serious research on finding a cure for Covid-19,” said Goyal.

“India has, of course, shown out in its performance of tackling the pandemic smartly including the first phase where we prepared ourselves, we converted this crisis into an opportunity involving huge amount of new elements to our economic policy to the AatmaNirbhar Bharat packages, eg testing we ramped up from 2,500 to nearly 3 million per day; PPEs were being made Zero, we are now the world’s second largest manufacturer of PPEs, our ICU beds ramp up, our Oxygen ramp, the ramp up of training of skilled manpower. On a variety of fronts India has shown the way,” he added.

The Union Minister said the clarion call for becoming Aatma Nirbhar given by Prime Minister Modi has truly transformed the way, the mindset of every Indian.

“An AatmaNirbhar Bharat is not about closing India’s doors to engagements with the world; it’s actually opening the doors wider, because where we are competitive we want leadership position in world trade, where we think we need to import we want liberal market access within India and reciprocated by other countries for all products so that we can expand trade on both sides and truly become an important stakeholder in global supply chains, a trusted partner and help in the recovery of the world, - the economic recovery, the social recovery and the health recovery of the world in the post-pandemic era,” he said.

He called upon the G20 to play a leadership role for people, planet and collective prosperity.

“What we need is faith in ourselves, in our abilities. G20 members must have a “Centric” approach i.e. economic progress must be employment centric policies, people centric cooperation, community centric,” he said.

The G20 is the international forum that brings together the world’s major economies. Its members account for more than 80% of world GDP, 75% of global trade and 60% of the population of the planet.

The forum has met every year since 1999 and includes, since 2008, a yearly Summit, with the participation of the respective heads of state and government.