India, Japan and Australia on Tuesday formally launched the Supply Chain Resilience Initiative (SCRI) in a virtual Trilateral Ministerial Meeting. Under the SCRI, the countries will share best practices on supply chain resilience and will hold investment promotion and buyer-seller matching events to provide opportunities for stakeholders to diversify their supply chains.

Dan Tehan, Australia’s Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment; Piyush Goyal, Minister for Commerce and Industry, and Kajiyama Hiroshi, Japan’s Minister for Economy, Trade and Industry, participated in the ministerial meeting.

Batting for inclusive growth

SCRI aims to create a virtuous cycle of enhancing supply chain resilience with a view to eventually attaining strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth in the region.

“The Ministers acknowledged that the Covid-19 pandemic was having an unprecedented impact in terms of lives lost, livelihoods and economies affected, and that the pandemic had revealed supply chain vulnerabilities globally and in the region. The Ministers also noted that some supply chains have been left vulnerable due to a range of factors,” an official statement added.

The initiative was launched after high-level consultations since September last year, among the three countries. Expressing their commitment to strengthen resilient supply chains, the three nations also said that they will look at adopting policy measures to support enhanced utilisation of digital technology and supporting trade and investment diversification.

The Ministers of the three nations have also decided to convene at least once a year for consultation on the implementation of the SCRI. The Ministers also noted the important role of business and academia for the initiative and have directed their officials to meet as often as required to take it forward, the statement added.

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