Focus on early deliverables which can benefit all members: Piyush Goyal to IPEF

Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal has urged member countries of the IPEF group to focus on early deliverables which can benefit all the nations, the commerce ministry said on Monday. Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) was launched by the US and other partner countries of the Indo-Pacific region on May 23 last year in Tokyo.

The 14 partner countries represent 40 per cent of global GDP and 28 per cent of global goods and services trade.

Goyal said this while addressing visiting delegates of the IPEF partner countries on February 10 here.


The delegates were here to attend the special negotiating round for the IPEF which was hosted by India from February 8-11.

The round covered three pillars of the framework - supply chains, clean economy, and fair economy. India has opted out from the trade pillar.

Goyal has asked the members to come up with creative and innovative approaches to develop convergences and achieve tangible outcomes.

"He specifically urged members to focus on early harvest of deliverables which can benefit all the members," it said.

The minister shared his views on some of the common tangible benefits like capacity building; technical assistance, including sharing of expertise and best practices; investments, innovative projects, expected out of this initiative.

Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal on February 8 urged all the delegates to focus on the broader objectives for creating more conducive environments for enhancing trade and investment linkages, development of resilient supply chains, and acceleration of sustainable development.

The ministry said that all the countries agreed to continue working intensively to make further progress in each of the three pillars.

About 300 officials from India, the United States, Australia, Brunei, Fiji, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam participated in the deliberations.

All the other 13 Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for prosperity countries have joined all the four pillars -- trade, supply chains, clean economy and fair economy.