The Trade, Investment and Growth team within the G20 Think Tank is calling for cooperation between member states and African countries to restore global value chains to enhance competitiveness and economic transformation.
The team is putting forward proposals to enhance cross-border investment flows and establish the regulatory framework to reap the benefits of digital trade, while expanding cooperation between the countries of the Middle East and North Africa, African countries and the G20 members, through improving trade cooperation and restructuring global value chains that allow for the promotion of competitive production, diversification and economic transformation.
This comes at a time when the global trading system is facing many challenges, such as the escalation of protectionism, unequal opportunities to enter global value chains and legal systems that are ill-prepared for digital trade and international trade in services.
In this context, Dr. Said al-Sheikh, the head of the Trade, Investment and Growth team, told Asharq Al-Awsat that a symposium would be held on Thursday to discuss means to reform the World Trade Organization.
According to Al-Sheikh, the meeting will discuss the ways to diversify the economy in the Middle East, North Africa and African countries, through three proposals that address the importance of economic diversification from an international perspective on the increase in the volume of trade.
Opening the economy enables countries to achieve economic diversification, especially if they are able to market their products to foreign markets, he underlined.
Al-Sheikh also emphasized calls to boost trade with African countries and activate treaties that would enable them to diversify their economies.
The proposal, which pertains to the MENA region, highlights the importance of economic diversification and exit from the economies of single commodity markets, whether oil countries in the Gulf region or countries that depend solely on tourism or agriculture sectors, he remarked.
