The two-day workshop is focussing on global trade and investment.
At the opening ceremony, Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen said China would continue to boost the cooperation mechanism among G20 countries, promote global trade growth, and support the multilateral trading system.
He also called for coordination on policy to facilitate global investment, and on the global value chain.
Wang Shouwen said these measures would pave the way for the ministerial meeting in July, and the September summit in Hangzhou.
"Today and tomorrow will be very important for this year's trade and investment agenda. We assume very heavy responsibility of paving the way for our trade ministers and our leaders. As the presidency, China will carry out the spirit of openness and inclusiveness of the whole process. I hope that, after substantial discussion at this meeting, we could reach consensus on most of the proposals and leave as little work as possible for July"
On the matter of global trade, Zhang Shaogang, Director General of the Department of International Trade and Economic Affairs with the Ministry of Commerce said China would develop a series of measures to boost the trade growth.
He added that the G20 members are considering developing global investment policy guidelines to strengthen coordination in global investment policy.
Co-chair of the G20's Trade and Investment Working Group, Canadian Permanent Representative of the World Trade Organization, Jonathan Fried says China has acted well its responsibility as president and that the collective actions being taken could have an impact not only on the G20 countries but also on the whole world.
"Our agenda, as I said, focuses on what actions we can take collectively, both in our domestic policies and in the positions we take in the relevant international organization to facilitate the investment and to foster greater volumes of trade. This benefits not only Canada as a trading nation, and not only G20 nations, but should be good for all of our partners around the world."
Zhou Mi, a researcher with the Ministry of Commerce points out that the G20 nations makes up 80 per cent of the global trade volume, and 60 per cent of global investment. As major economies in the world, the group should act responsibly to contribute to the world economy.
"The current situation is: although the Global trade volume is growing, but the rate is very slow, including the developed and developing countries, they all facing a lot of problems. When China faces the initial stage of the global economic crisis, impacts are relatively indirect, but now we are slowly feeling impacts from more developed countries due to their shrinking markets. So we hope through this cooperation, the G20 can join forces together, to reach consensus."
He added that, with more certain constraints on the G20 countries, these large economies could significantly support the global economy, and recover trade momentum.
For CRI, I'm Min Rui.
