Alexey Mordashov presented preliminary business recommendations on global trade to the G20 Sherpas

“Promoting international trade and ensuring that supply chains can continue to evolve efficiently are of the issues of greatest importance and should remain one of the core items of the G20 agenda,” — Alexey Mordashov emphasized. — Myths that trade has a negative impact on local jobs are counterproductive and hinder the development of the world economy. Experience of recent decades has shown that those countries in which trade barriers are lower and which are actively engaged in the international trade processes have higher growth rate."

Concerning the fight against protectionism, the G20 should explore ways to reverse protectionist measures and ensure full respect for the existing multilateral trade commitments.The Task Force called for a redoubling of efforts to ensure protectionism does not creep back into global trade. The monitoring system itself should be further extended and strengthened to address the full scope of protectionist measures, including the non-tariff ones.

“The G20 has played an important role in inhibiting protectionism,” — Mr. Mordashov admitted. — “Generally, the world remains open for trade. We think it is vital to continue our efforts in this direction, and the extension of the WTO mandate on protectionism measures monitoring after 2014 could be a significant practical step forward.”

To achieve progress in the sphere of trade facilitation, the G20 governments should urge all parties to finalize the wording of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement by the G20 Summit in September, for the final agreement to be concluded at the Bali WTO Ministerial in December.

“This agreement covers the removal of administrative barriers to trade, and enhancing the work of custom and other authorities engaged in goods and services cross-border logistics,” — The Business 20 Taskforce Co-Chair explained. — “Currently, as suggested by the OECD estimates, international trade losses due to demurrage resulting from administrative delays are as high as 4%.”

Multilateral trade agreements are the most effective way to contribute to economic growth. The challenge is to ensure that PTAs pave the way for broader trade liberalization, rather than become obstacles to it.

To address this challenge, the Task Force recommended the G20 should encourage the WTO to take a leadership role in developing best practices and guiding the design of PTAs to make them compatible with and complementary to WTO rules.

Background on the Group of Twenty, Business 20 (“B20”) and B20 Trade Task Force

Group of Twenty — http://www.g20.org/

Business 20 (“B20”) is an informal network of business associations, collaborating in order to maintain a continuous dialogue between the business community, G20 governments and relevant international institutions. The B20 provides recommendations on trade and economic policy to G20 leaders to help foster global economic growth.

At a respective national level, the B20 members are the recognized leaders in the business community, the most important ones able to maintain a permanent dialogue with the relevant authorities and to mobilize the private sector forces to contribute to the success of the G20. There are several B20 Task Forces focusing on different macro-economic and other policy issues. http://b20russia.com

The B20 Trade Task Force consists of 20 companies and 9 business associations, representing 13 of the G20 countries. OAO Severstal is the only major Russian business in the Group. The B20 Trade Task Force aims to represent a diversity of business community views from a variety of regions and industries all united by a passion to develop more open and transparent global free trade. Alexey Mordashov, CEO of Severstal, co-chairs the B20 Trade Task Force, with Andrey Laptev, head of Severstal corporate strategy department, being his Sherpa (official representative).

The two other co-chairmen are Mr. Jurgen R.Thumann, President BUSINESSEUROPE, and Mr. Harold W. McGraw III, Vice-Chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), Chairman of US Council for International Business, Chairman, President and CEO of the The McGraw-Hill.