Union Minister of Commerce & Industry and Railways, Piyush Goyal, held a series of bilateral talks with a number of countries on the side lines of the two day G20 Ministerial on Trade and Digital Economy in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan.

During the bilateral meetings with host Japan and countries like USA, UK, China, France, Singapore, Korea, Spain, Canada, EU, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Chile and Australia, Piyush Goyal emphasized the need for reciprocal market access for Indian products.

He said that the slowdown in global trade and investment is of serious concern to all of usas it adversely affects economic growth,development and job creation. He called for de-escalating trade tensions and reviving confidence in the rules based multilateral trading system which all countries had so painstakingly created.

The Commerce Minister said that while India is committed to working towards building free trade, that is inclusive and development centric to bring prosperity to people around the world, focus on the imperatives of meeting the goals of SDGs, and eliminating poverty and deprivationmust not be lost.

He further reiterated that with the advent of digital technologies, services are vital drivers of growth. Servicification of the manufacturing sector is enhancing the importance of services in global trade. Major investment is also being driven by the services sector. Thus, we need to remove barriers and facilitate temporary movement of highly skilled professionals to sustain this investment and growth.