India proposed a list of seven deliverables to be taken up during its Chairship of the group

The BRICS Contact Group on Economic and Trade Issues (CGETI) leads held their first meeting under India’s Chairship from 9-11 March where New Delhi presented the calendar of events and proposed deliverables to all member countries.

The calendar of events for BRICS CGETI 2021 included the priority areas for deliverables, schedule and scope of the MSME roundtable conference workshop on Services Statistics, and the BRICS Trade Fair, a statement from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said.

The presentation of the events calendar was followed by a series of presentations, scheduled in separate sessions, made by the concerned Departments of the Government of India on the proposed deliverables during India’s Chairship under the BRICS CGETI track, the release added.

It further pointed out that there were 7 proposed deliverables. The first is an action plan based on the document “Strategy for BRICS Economic Partnership 2025” adopted during Russian Presidency in 2020 second; second, BRICS Cooperation on Multilateral Trading system including cooperation for the TRIPS Waiver proposal at WTO.

Third on the list of deliverables is the Framework for Consumer Protection in E-Commerce; fourth, Non-Tariff Measures (NTM) Resolution Mechanism; fifth, Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) Working Mechanism; sixth, Co-operation framework for protection of Genetic Resources and Traditional Knowledge, the release said.

The seventh and last of the proposed deliverables was on the BRICS Framework on Co-operation in Professional Services, according to the release.

It noted, the BRICS partners appreciated the activities planned by India, being timely and relevant in the current context and expressed their support for working together on the various initiatives proposed by India.

Inter-sessional deliberations will be carried out till September to reach a consensus amongst the BRICS countries, it explained.

The BRICS officers tasked with CGETI would continue the work for the 27th official level CGETI meeting, scheduled to be held in June 2021, the Ministry’s statement announced.

The theme of BRICS this year is ‘BRICS@15: Intra BRICS Cooperation for Continuity, Consolidation, and Consensus.’

Last month, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar launched a website for five-nation grouping BRICS. He informed that the website will provide a comprehensive snapshot of our strong BRICS engagement and the exhaustive calendar of events during BRICS at 15 under the Chairmanship of India.