The B20 2016 China Second Joint Taskforce Meeting held in Paris, France, on May 31, 2016, in association with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) re-emphasized the significance of an empowered digital economy to increase global trade and rebalance the global economy.
GCEL’s interventions at the Trade and Investment Taskforces included how the digitization of trade can de-risk doing business by reducing the fragmentation and inefficiency of supply chains, which in turn will support the ratification of the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) and trigger increased global trade.
GCEL’s recommendations at the SME Development Taskforce included the adoption of a Digital Economy Platform providing new digital tools to SMEs allowing them to reduce trade costs, ease access to financing and better connect with global markets. The tenants of a digital platform are that no country, region, or organization shall control such a platform since trade is of national security importance to any single nation.
Accordingly, GCEL cited that a Digital Economy Platform must be deployed by a Public -Private Partnership to offset geopolitical and monopolistic concerns. In this regard, GCEL announced the need for a Global Data Security Standard involving a multi-layered mechanism to safeguard the privacy and security of trade information.