NEW DELHI, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- India's Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday said it was high time to take on the policies of protectionism and unilateral measures by some developed countries that were having an adverse effect on global free trade.
"If this continues there will be recession in the world and no country will escape it," said Goyal when speaking at an international dialogue on South-South and Triangular Cooperation in New Delhi.
The minister urged that all member countries must take up reforms of the World Trade Organization (WTP) and not deal with issues in a piecemeal manner.
"We cannot afford to walk away from the current system but all member countries of the WTO must re-engage to ensure that the rule-based, transparent, and non-discriminatory governance that free-trade requires is taken forward honestly and in a non-discriminatory manner and keeping in mind the interests of different member countries with disparate GDP," he added.
He further stated that the policies of protectionism followed by some developed countries were affecting engagement between countries for trade in goods, services and protection of investments.
"India is fast-tracking its efforts to reach the sustainable development goals (SDGs) to the last man at the bottom of the pyramid. India also desires that this pace of development reaches people in the rest of the world," he added.
According to him, South-South cooperation was a broad framework of collaboration among countries of the south in the political, economic, social, cultural, environmental and technical domains.