(Reuters) - Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) agreed on Saturday to establish an initiative to counter economic "coercion", pledging to take steps to ensure that any actors attempting to "weaponise" economic dependence would fail and face consequences.
The initiative, dubbed Coordination Platform on Economic Coercion, will use early warning and rapid information sharing on economic coercion with members meeting regularly for consultations, the G7 leaders, meeting in Hiroshima, Japan, said in a statement.
Below are excerpts from the statement.
"We are taking additional steps today to enhance our ongoing strategic coordination on economic resilience and economic security by reducing vulnerabilities and countering malign practices that exploit and reinforce them.
"We underline the importance of cooperating both within the G7 as well as with all our partners to enhance global economic resilience, including by supporting a more significant role for low and middle-income countries in supply chains... We will address non-market policies and practices designed to reinforce dependencies, and will counter economic coercion. We will continue to ensure that the clearly defined, narrow set of sensitive technologies that are crucial for national security or could threaten international peace and security are appropriately controlled, without unduly impacting broader trade in technology."
RESILIENT SUPPLY CHAINS
"We recognise that transparency, diversification, security, sustainability, and trustworthiness and reliability are essential principles on which to build and strengthen resilient supply-chain networks among trusted partner countries both within and outside the G7. We encourage all nations to support these principles on resilient and reliable supply chains. We reaffirm our strong will to support the wider international community, particularly developing countries, in building their resilience, including through implementing the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment.
"We will enhance resilient supply chains through partnerships around the world, especially for critical goods such as critical minerals, semiconductors and batteries. We will step up our efforts to strengthen channels of communication to address supply disruptions and share insights and best practices, including from respective scenario-based stress testing."
COORDINATION PLATFORM
"The world has encountered a disturbing rise in incidents of economic coercion that seek to exploit economic vulnerabilities and dependencies and undermine the foreign and domestic policies and positions of G7 members as well as partners around the world. We will work together to ensure that attempts to weaponise economic dependencies by forcing G7 members and our partners, including small economies, to comply and conform will fail and face consequences. We express serious concern over economic coercion and call on all countries to refrain from its use, which not only undermines the functioning of and trust in the multilateral trading system, but also infringes upon the international order centred on respect for sovereignty and the rule of law, and ultimately undermines global security and stability.