The leader of the Group of 20 (G20), who have gathered in Osaka for their annual summit, adopted on Friday a joint declaration on digital economy, stressing that it was important to promote discussions on the issue at various levels in order to unleash the full potential of the digital economy.
The text showed that G20, as well as Chile, the Netherlands, Senegal, Singapore, Spain, Thailand and Vietnam, agreed that digitalization had an impact not only on the global economy but on people as well, and that effective use of data would benefit people around the world as a factor contributing to economic growth.
“We share the view that digitalization is transforming every aspect of our economies ans societies, and data is increasingly becoming an important source of economic growth, and its effective use should contribute to social well-being in all countries,” the declaration said.
The declaration also stressed the importance of having discussions about the digital economy both at the international level and at the level of states so that they could create innovations by employing the full potential of the digital economy and data.
“We … hereby declare the launch of the ‘Osaka Track’, a process which demonstrates our commitment to promote international policy discussions, inter alia, international rule-making on trade related aspects of electronic commerce at the WTO [World Trade Organization,” the declaration added.
