The World Economic Forum has outlined three proposals for realizing a “win-win” digital economy in G20 nations. The presidency of the grouping is being held by Indonesia this year.
“I want to show you how growing investment in digital economy can help us recover together and recover stronger,” policy and community lead for international trade and investment at the World Economic Forum, Matthew Stephenson, remarked during a T20 webinar on ‘Digitalization, Data Governance, and Cross-Border Data Flows,’ which was accessed online from here on Thursday.
The first proposal is to create an investment cooperation platform that focuses on facilitating two-way digital flows of foreign direct investment (FDI).
“The platform can provide mechanism from government to government and government to business,” he noted.
In addition, such a platform would not only help identify the necessary enabling policies, but also determine specific complementary FDI interests and projects, Stephenson said.
The benefits will be in both the economic as well as political sectors, he added.
On the economic side, it will provide information that would help improve market efficiency, leading to job creation, knowledge transfer, and upgrade in revenue growth, he noted.
Meanwhile, on the political side, such a platform would provide space for engagement between parties that may not otherwise have an avenue to exchange views and build trust and understanding, he added.
The second proposal pertains to identifying two-way “win-win” digital FDI flows at the sector and project levels.
“This can use existing work that identifies six priority sectors as horizontal enablers, and which also shows flows for each G20 economy between 2010 and 2020,” Stephenson pointed out.
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The third is to develop joint activities between investment authorities.
He said that it can also use existing works that identify five specific potential joint activities between G20 investment authorities.
Data governance and cross-border data flows have remained key issues at the G20 since 2019 when Japan held the presidency of the grouping, highlighting the role of reliable data flow in the digital economy.
The issues were brought up by Saudi Arabia in 2020 and Italy in 2021 when they held the presidency of the grouping. Currently, Indonesia’s G20 Presidency is emphasizing reliable cross-border data flows and data free-flow with respect to data security and sovereignty.
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