India has attended the 47th G7 summit as a guest country, past month. And, last week, this group of seven nations has jointly agreed on a new set of principles and trade rules. This blog will learn about the latest collection of principles and important terms related to it.
Aim of the new G7 trade rules
The primary aim of the new G7 trade principles is to facilitate digital trade among the boundaries of different nations. That’s why these rules are also known as G7 Digital Trade Principles. These principles aim to reduce trade barriers among other countries.
Before we discuss recent principles, let us first learn the meaning of G7 and its essential works.
What is the G7?
G7 expands for the Group of Seven. It is an intergovernmental organization formed in 1975. The organization meets annually to discuss issues of global importance. These issues include common interests of different nations such as economic governance, international security, and energy policy.
The permanent G7 countries are the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US. India has joined as a guest country in the G7 group in 2019.
What are the major decisions taken by the G7 group?
The group takes different decisions during the annual summit. These decisions are non-binding. And, it depends on a country if it wants to implement it or not. Following are the list of major works done by the G7 group.
The world project:
The G7 group aims to compete with China’s trillion-dollar Belt and road infrastructure. The group has decided to catalyze hundreds of billions of infrastructure investments for poor Asian and African countries. The G7 has offered these countries high standards and a transparent partnership.
Democracies 11:
It is a joint statement between G7 and the guest countries. The step encourages the value of freedom of expression. It ensures global citizens’ freedom, safeguards democracy, and helps them live free from fear and operation. This step aims to protect the democratic system from rising authoritarianism, corruption, online harms, cyber-attacks, human rights violations, terrorism, and violent extremism.
Climate change:
Climate change is one of the biggest concerns of all G7 countries. The group has pledged to raise its contributions to meet an overdue spending pledge of USD 100 billion per year. This step was taken to help developing countries reduce carbon emissions. The G& has also pledged to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Carbis Bay declaration:
The group G7 signed the Carbis Bay declaration during the pandemic times. And it was a part of the international COVAX program. The deal aimed to prevent future pandemics. Also, it helped poor nations in arranging 1 billion coronavirus vaccine doses. Half of these doses have been sponsored by the US.
G7 stand against China:
The G7 countries have asked the World Health Organization (WHO) to study a transparent case against china to find the cause of the origin of the Covid virus.
G7 Trade Principles
The G7 trade principles are also known as digital trade principles. Digital trade is defined as the trade of goods and services by digital means. Here is the set of principles approved by G7 to reduce digital trade barriers.
Open and fair digital markets:
The group has suggested that digital markets be open, competitive, transparent, and accessible to all international trade.
Data flow:
The digital economy can be enhanced when the data is allowed to flow freely across borders. This builds the trust of both individuals and organizations.
Digital trading:
To drive speed to digital trade, software and documents of the governments and industries should move towards digitalization.
Safeguard for employees:
Protections and laws must be taken to ensure employees safety who are directly engaged in digital trade.
Fair global governance:
The rules for digital trade should be standard for all nations and must be approved by the World Trade Organization (WTO).
What is the importance of G7 digital trade principles?
The set of G7 principles is essential as it acts as a middle ground between highly regulated data protection used in European countries and the more open approach of the US. Also, the principles ensure a billion dollars as a profit of barrier-free digital trade.
A way forward:
Digital trade is a great innovative way to achieve globalization. We are living in an era where the entire globe is a family. Hence, global digital trade becomes more important. Though, digital trade has many problems, such as data localization and privacy risks. The data flow in digital trade opens a new challenge to global cyber security. But these limitations can be covered by removing bureaucratic hurdles and ensuring data transfer safety.
Overall, the G7 trade principles open an excellent opportunity for India to fame its name in the global market.