Trade ministers from the Group of Seven industrialized nations said at the close of their two-day meet-up in Japan’s Osaka on Sunday that they would push for a reform of the World Trade Organization to regulate state intervention in industrial sectors.
"We reaffirmed our commitment to promoting WTO reform that serves the interests of all members and to maintaining and strengthening a rules-based, inclusive, free and fair multilateral trading system, with the WTO at its core," the joint statement read.
The ministers complained about alleged efforts by some countries to "channel State support and to produce key industrial goods in an unfair manner" and pledged to seek the establishment of a "dedicated space" within the WTO to discuss "the interface between trade and state intervention in industrial sectors."
On industrial subsidies, the G7 ministers said they would seek to address perceived gaps between the current WTO rules and what they referred to as "market distortive practices" of state-owned enterprises that provide "opaque and trade-distortive subsidies … including investment funds controlled in substance by the State."
The ministers acknowledged that subsidies can be a tool to achieve "legitimate public policy objectives" in some circumstances, but stressed the need to ensure transparency both at the WTO through subsidy notification and domestically by making information on subsidy programs publicly available.
"We are prepared to explore ways to improve compliance with transparency obligations by all WTO members," they said.
The G7 also discussed the need to maintain resilient and reliable supply chains, which they said played a major role in achieving inclusive growth, including in emerging and developing economies. In this regard, the group reached out to Australia, Chile, Indonesia and Kenya as some of the major mineral producing countries.
The ministers said they "deplore actions to weaponize economic dependencies," and committed to accelerate collaboration with the wider international community to build resilient supply chains, including for such goods as critical minerals, semiconductors and batteries.
"We note with concern the recent export control measures on critical minerals. We support the G7 Climate, Energy and Environment Ministers’ commitment to implement the Five-Point Plan for Critical Minerals Security in this regard, and look forward to further coordination to address trade restrictions and market distorting practices," they said.
On food security, the ministers said all import restrictions should be "science-based and only applied in accordance with WTO and other international rules." They called for the immediate lifting of all measures that "unnecessarily restrict trade," such as China’s and Russia’s bans on Japanese seafood that were introduced after Japan started dumping nuclear-tainted water into the Pacific.