Tsukuba, Japan (ANTARA) - Indonesian Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita said the Group of Twenty (G20) forum is making every effort to ease trade war tensions that have the potential to disrupt the performance of global trade.
"We hope for the de-escalation of trade war tensions," he said on the sidelines of the G20 Ministerial Meeting on Digital Trade and Economy held in Tsukuba, Japan, on Sunday.
The effort is necessary to prevent the global trade growth from declining further as projected by the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The WTO has projected the global trade will only grow 2.6 percent this year compared to 4.0 percent in 2017 and 3.6 percent in 2018.
"They (WTO) will likely make another adjustment to the projection in the second half of 2019 if the condition remains as it is," he said.
Hence, the effort to ease the tensions of the US-China trade war must be made to avoid sluggish global trade, he said.
The two-day G20 Ministerial Meeting on Digital Trade and Economy which discussed the latest economic developments ended on Sunday (June 9, 2019).
Among of them were exchange of digital economic data, de-escalation of trade war, reduction of subsidies for fair trade, reform of WTO role and significance of multilateral cooperation.
The G20 is the premier forum for its members' international economic cooperation and decision-making. Its membership comprises 19 countries plus the European Union. The G20 started in 1999 as a meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis.
Reporter: Satyagraha, Suharto
Editor: Bambang Purwanto
