The Group of Seven joint communique gives significant attention to the vaccine supply chain then extends several anti-pandemic principles toward achieving greater economic resilience. Here is a long-quote that makes the pivot:
The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated the risk to economic resilience posed by global crises and shocks. These can manifest from acute shocks, for example as a result of pandemics, and chronically, from challenges such as market imbalances and distortions. Our recoveries must ensure we build back more resilient. As we recover, these risks need addressing in a more coordinated way. We will collaborate more strongly between us and with allies on a new approach to economic resilience. We recognise climate change and growing inequalities as key risks for the global economy. We will consider mechanisms and share best practices to address risks to the resilience of the critical global supply chains, in areas such as critical minerals and semiconductors, reflecting on models used elsewhere such as stress-testing. We will also enhance our cooperation on investment security within our G7 Investment Screening Expert Group, to ensure we are resilient in our openness to all, able to tackle risks in keeping with our shared principles of open markets, transparency and competition. Our solutions will be built on our shared principles of openness, sustainability, inclusion, innovation and competition will help retain and reinforce the benefits of open markets; without them, we risk a future of normalised volatility and fragmentation in the global economy.
In the communique there is a recurring reference to creating supply chains that are “secure, resilient, competitive, transparent and sustainable and diverse.” Each of these terms will soon appear as headings along an edge of an action matrix.
Having contributed to a few of these documents over the years, I am (overly?) sensitive to the appearance of specific examples after a comma that was probably a period in several prior drafts, such as this rather awkward bit in the quote: “… reflecting on models used elsewhere such as stress testing.” Someone was successful inserting stress testing and will now use the reference to push bureaucracies to action. I wonder if David Paduano was walking along Carbis Bay last weekend? For more, see page 20 of this recent report.