Minister Nishimura Visits Germany

1. G7 Trade Ministers' Meeting

(1) Overview

• On September 14 (Wed.) and 15 (Thu.), the G7 Trade Ministers' Meeting was held in Neuhardenberg, Germany. METI Minister Nishimura and Mr. Yamada Kenji, State Minister of Foreign Affairs, attended as Japan's representatives.
• At the meeting, ministers from the G7 countries actively discussed resilient and sustainable supply chains, reforming the WTO, and levelling the playing field.
• On the evening of the 14th (Wed.), the G7 trade ministers held a dinner and invited Ms. Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine's First Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Economic Development and Trade. The attendees discussed trade-related measures to help Ukraine recover from the negative impacts caused by Russia's aggression against it.

(2) Comments by Minister Nishimura

METI Minister Nishimura made the following comments in the sessions listed.

(Dinner with Ms. Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine's First Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Economic Development and Trade, and the G7 trade ministers)

• We condemn Russia's aggression against Ukraine as completely unacceptable, and we have already issued strict sanctions against Russia in line with the other G7 countries.
• To help Ukraine recover, our public and private sectors will act as one to stimulate Japanese companies' business there. To that end, Nippon Export and Investment Insurance (NEXI) will continue providing trade insurance to encourage trade and investments in Ukraine. They will also consider further support for the future, such as establishing lines of credit.
• The Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) has established a Support Team for Ukraine. It will work with METI to help drive exports from Ukraine to Japan and other countries. Beyond that, JETRO is focused on the potential held by young human resources and startups in Ukraine's IT field and is advancing its business matching efforts toward partnering of Japanese and Ukrainian companies.
• Restoring the production and export of Ukraine's agricultural and other products is an essential part of rebuilding the Ukrainian people's lives and economy. It's also important for people around the world. Japan will keep supporting Ukraine together with the other G7 countries and the international community.

(Resilient and sustainable supply chains)

• In terms of resilience, the G7 should lead efforts to open up markets and promote trade and investment, such as restraining export restrictions. At the same time, we must prepare for supply chain disturbance and interruptions by diversifying the supply sources of important goods and strengthening our industry infrastructures.
• We must also consider new frameworks to complement multilateral export control regimes that are not fully functional.
• Regarding sustainability, especially human rights, Japan released due diligence guidelines this week for respecting human rights in supply chains. We will cooperate internationally to create an environment in which companies can actively work to eliminate forced labor from their supply chains and ensure human rights are respected.

(Reforming the WTO)

• We welcome what was agreed upon at MC12. The WTO is our last line of defense against a divided world economy. We will keep working to reform the WTO based on the commitment agreed upon at MC12.
• To improve the WTO's negotiation function, we need to speed up discussions between like-minded countries on plurilateral negotiations. In particular, it is essential to advance E-commerce discussions substantially before MC13 and aim to come to an agreement quickly.
• Japan will do its best to help reform the dispute settlement system by 2024, which we committed to at MC12. We are strongly concerned about empty appeals accumulating until this system is reformed, which may result in the inability to adequately discipline any parties for violating the WTO Agreement. We should also consider temporary responses to take while the Appellate Body is unable to function.

(Levelling the playing field and economic coercion)

• Like-minded countries must band together to deal with opaque and market-distorting measures. We should specifically work on strengthening, formulating, and enforcing rules on the issues of industrial subsidies, state-owned enterprises, and forced technology transfers.
• For industrial subsidies and state-owned enterprises, it is most important that we make subsidy reports in the WTO more transparent and strengthen our rules against harmful industrial subsidies—including those that lead to excess capacity—and against actions by state-owned enterprises that are not in line with market principles.
• For forced technology transfers, we need to address all of them—including indirect ones. To ensure that the existing rules are strictly adhered to, we must utilize various forums including the WTO as platforms to work with like-minded countries and consider strengthening the rules on technology transfer requirements.
• The G7 must show the world that it does not tolerate economic coercion and seek out concrete measures that a wide range of like-minded countries can enact together.

(3) Outcome document and other data

• G7 Trade Ministers' Statement(PDF:118KB)

2. Meetings with participating ministers and officials

Minister Nishimura took the G7 Trade Ministers' Meeting as an opportunity to meet with other leaders. He met with Ms. Yulia Svyrydenko (Ukraine's First Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Economic Development and Trade), Mr. Robert Habeck (Germany's Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action), Mr. Olivier Becht (France's Minister for Foreign Trade, Attractiveness and French Nationals Abroad), Ms. Mary Ng (Canada's Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development), Mr. Valdis Dombrovskis (Executive Vice President of the European Commission), and Ms. Katherine TAI (US Trade Representative).

In the meeting with Ms. Svyrydenko, Ukraine's First Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Economic Development and Trade, the ministers discussed Japan's cooperation toward Ukraine’s recovery.

Mr. Habeck is the Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action of Germany, the chair of this year's G7 Trade Ministers' Meeting. In the meeting, the two ministers discussed how they will work together for next year's meeting—which Japan will be the chair of—as well as how to strengthen their partnerships on the trade and energy fronts, the latter of which prices have been soaring in.

In the meeting with Mr. Becht, France's Minister for Foreign Trade, Attractiveness and French Nationals Abroad, the two ministers discussed next year's G7 Trade Ministers' Meeting and how to strengthen the partnerships between like-minded countries, specifically those between Japan and France and between Japan, European countries, and the US.

In the meeting with Ms. Ng, Canada's Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development, the two ministers discussed how their countries will work together on the CPTPP and WTO reform and confirmed the importance of the two countries’ collaboration.

In the meeting with Mr. Dombrovskis, Executive Vice President of the European Commission, the two leaders discussed how to strengthen Japan and the EU's partnership on maintaining and promoting a free and fair economic order. This discussion included next year's G7 Trade Ministers' Meeting and reforming the WTO.

Minister Nishimura also met with US Trade Representative Tai and Senior Vice-President Dombrovskis of the European Commission in a three-person meeting. They confirmed that they will work together to eliminate forced labor and agreed to speed up administrative-level discussions on how to deal with market-distorting measures.

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Division in Charge

Multilateral Trade System Department, Trade Policy Bureau