The G7 Trade Ministers met at Neuhardenberg Castle in Germany on Wednesday 14 and Thursday 15 September. They were joined by Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, and reiterated their commitment to countering the effects of the Russian-led war.
Above all, they highlighted the importance - in their view - of open world trade. China is one of their “concerns in terms of distortion of competition, subsidies to industries, transparency”, stressed EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis.
For this reason, the G7 members want to act together to counter Chinese practices: “We will implement a more robust trade policy towards China”, said German Economy Minister Robert Habeck.
Trilateral joint statement on forced labour.
The US and Japanese ministers and the EU Commissioner used the meeting to sign a trilateral joint statement on forced labour. They said they were “concerned” about the situation, following the release of the International Labour Organization (ILO) report on 12 September, which found that there are 28 million forced labourers in the world.
The US, Japan and the EU have committed themselves to combating this scourge, in particular by making companies more aware of their responsibilities and encouraging them to be more active in the fight against forced labour.
On 14 September, the European Commission presented a proposal for a regulation to ban forced labour products from the European market (see EUROPE 13021/17).
See the trilateral joint statement: https://aeur.eu/f/33i (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)