The financial leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) recently pledged to give low- and middle-income countries a bigger role in diversifying supply chains to help them become more resilient. In addition, leaders pledged to maintain the stability of the global financial system despite the recent banking turmoil.
In a statement on April 12, G7 finance ministers and central bank governors said they were committed to “collaborating to empower low- and middle-income countries to play a bigger role in supply chains through mutually beneficial collaboration by empowering finance, knowledge and partnership combine, which will help contribute to sustainable development and improve supply chain resilience worldwide.”
According to Al Jazeera, G7 finance ministers said supply chains must “achieve efficiency and resilience” to maintain macroeconomic stability while making other financial systems more sustainable. The statement cited the “need to diversify the ‘highly concentrated’ clean energy technology supply chains.”
“In this endeavor, we will remain steadfast to protect our shared values while maintaining economic efficiency by upholding the free, fair and rules-based multilateral system and international cooperation,” the finance leaders said.
China was not directly mentioned in the statement. However, Al Jazeera claimed that the supply chain language used by G7 leaders is consistent with industrial democracies’ efforts to work together to become “less dependent” on China for various strategic commodities.
While discussing the statement, Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said that while the language was not specifically aimed at China, the G7 group believed that a high concentration of supply chains in a single country was undesirable.
