B20 summit report one-sided: Chinese business representatives
The policy proposal report of the B20 summit, which one-sidedly identifies “addressing State-related competitive distortions” as a priority for the upcoming G20 summit, has ignored Chinese business circles’ demands and concerns and is a distortion of the summit’s true purpose and consensus principle, Chinese business representatives said.
The comment came after the B20 summit, held from Thursday to Friday in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires, issued policy recommendations on trade and investment to G20 leaders after the meeting.
Among the three priorities listed in the report, one suggested that G20 countries should “establish measures that ensure that State-owned enterprises do not have privileged access to non-commercial assistance.”
“These rules would particularly address market-distorting industrial subsidies and consequently trade distorting actions by State-owned enterprises,” the report continued.
The B20 is the business sector’s voice of the G20 countries. The body meets annually prior to the G20 summit and produces policy recommendations addressing global challenges and priorities, which are then sent to G20 leaders.
In response, the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) issued a statement on Friday, strongly opposing the summit’s report and saying it failed to properly represent the discussions and ran counter to the B20 summit’s consensus principle.
“The report ignored the proper demands of Chinese business circles by singling out certain topics such as State-owned enterprises distorting market competition,” the statement noted. Chinese companies actively participated in the B20 summit this year and put forward a number of constructive proposals during the discussions on all topics, according to the statement.
Chinese business representatives firmly opposed any document based on non-consensus views in the name of the B20 summit, and they urged the B20 summit to account for Chinese firms’ proposals and make substantive changes to the policy recommendation.
A Weibo user named Jinzhuz who identified herself as an employee of the CCPIT, and posted photo showing her participation in the B20 summit, wrote in a post on Saturday that the B20 report was written by US consulting firms and the experts and speakers during each panel discussion were also dominated by US and European nationals, indicating a marginalizing role given to business representatives from other countries, including China.
“Even the host country Argentina
has not made a major contribution [to the policy recommendations],” the post noted.
Lin Guijun, executive dean of the Academy of China Open Economy Studies under the University of International Business and Economics, said that currently one of the most severe problems in the global economy is rising protectionism, instead of problems with State-owned enterprises as was stated in the B20 report.
“Some countries are trying to blame external economic activities and overseas econ own problems. I think the B20 rekind port has shown a kind of comproctionist mise on such protectionist stances,” Lin told the Global Times on Sunday.