The shooting down of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine threatened to derail the meeting of Trade Ministers of the G20 Group of advanced and emerging economies in Sydney on Saturday.

As anger rose in Australia over Russia’s perceived role in arming and supporting the separatists, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott was under pressure to ban Russian President Vladimir Putin from the G20 leaders’ summit in Brisbane later this year.

Australia attempted to play down the tension by stating that such an action can be considered only after evaluating Russia’s co-operation. “This is something which has to be considered at the appropriate time,” said Andrew Robb, Australia’s Trade Minister, while briefing media after the summit. India provided the only other excitement at the meet, threatening not to implement the Trade Facilitation Agreement – which faces a July 31 implementation deadline – unless its concerns regarding its food security programme were adequately addressed. This had cast a shadow over whether consensus can be achieved in implementing the measures necessary to boost growth by 2 per cent over five years among the G20 economies.

In the event, Robb said India – represented by Commerce Minister Nirmala Seetharaman – had “fully committed to the package” and had in turn been assured by all G20 governments that a resolution would be found for the issue of its food purchase programme.

The US and Australia, as well as the EU, have been putting pressure on India for greater access to its agricultural markets and also cutting back on its subsidies, in which they include foodgrain purchases as part of public procurement for the PDS.

But Robb said the talks had remained centred around ways to promote growth and enhance global trade. “The focus was on global value chains, on ways to create more jobs. There was a reaffirmation of the power of multilateral agreements to facilitate this and a commitment to implement the Bali agreement,” Robb stated.

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