Breaking a New Path for Growth
9. Our growth, to be dynamic and create more jobs, must be powered by new driving forces. While reaffirming the importance of addressing shortfalls in global demand to support short-term growth, we believe it is also imperative to address supply side constraints so as to raise productivity sustainably, expand the frontier of production and unleash mid- to long-term growth potential.
10. We recognize that in the long run, innovation is a key driver of growth for both individual countries and the global economy as a whole. We are committed to tackling one of the root causes of weak growth by taking innovation as a key element of our effort to identify new growth engines for individual countries and the world economy, which will also contribute to creating new and better jobs, building a cleaner environment, increasing productivity, addressing global challenges, improving people's lives and building dynamic, cooperative and inclusive innovation ecosystems. We thus endorse the G20 Blueprint on Innovative Growth as a new agenda encompassing policies and measures in and across the areas of innovation, the new industrial revolution and the digital economy. In this context, we recognize the importance of structural reforms. We will act on the recommendations of the Blueprint in accordance with our national circumstances and in line with our vision for leadership, partnership, openness, inclusiveness, creativity, synergy and flexibility.
11. We commit to important cross-cutting actions related to multi-dimensional partnerships, supporting developing countries and improving skills and human capital. We will set up a G20 Task Force supported by the OECD and other relevant international organizations to take forward the G20 agenda on innovation, new industrial revolution and digital economy, subject to the priorities of the respective future G20 presidencies, ensuring continuity and consistency with the results so far, and promoting synergies with other G20 workstreams.
12. To achieve innovation-driven growth and the creation of innovative ecosystems, we support dialogue and cooperation on innovation, which covers a wide range of domains with science and technology innovation at its core. We deliver the G20 2016 Innovation Action Plan. We commit to pursue pro-innovation strategies and policies, support investment in science, technology and innovation (STI), and support skills training for STI - including support for the entry of more women into these fields - and mobility of STI human resources. We support effort to promote voluntary knowledge diffusion and technology transfer on mutually agreed terms and conditions. Consistent with this approach, we support appropriate efforts to promote open science and facilitate appropriate access to publicly funded research results on findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) principles. In furtherance of the above, we emphasize the importance of open trade and investment regimes to facilitate innovation through intellectual property rights (IPR) protection, and improving public communication in science and technology. We are committed to foster exchange of knowledge and experience by supporting an online G20 Community of Practice within the existing Innovation Policy Platform and the release of the 2016 G20 Innovation Report.
13. To seize the opportunity that the new industrial revolution (NIR) presents for industry, particularly manufacturing and related services, we deliver the G20 New Industrial Revolution Action Plan. We commit to strengthen communication, cooperation and relevant research on the NIR, facilitate small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to leverage benefits from the NIR, address employment and workforce skill challenges, encourage more cooperation on standards, adequate and effective IPR protection in line with existing multilateral treaties to which they are parties, new industrial infrastructure, and support industrialization, as committed in the action plan. We also support industrialization in developing countries, especially those in Africa and Least Developed Countries (LDCs). We are committed to supporting our workforces throughout this transition and to ensuring that the benefits of the NIR extend to all, including women, youth and disadvantaged groups. We call for cooperation to maximize the benefits and mitigate the negative impact of the expected technological and industrial changes. In all these initiatives, the G20 will take into consideration the different opportunities and challenges for developing and developed countries.
14. To unleash the potential of digital economy, we deliver the G20 Digital Economy Development and Cooperation Initiative, which builds on our work begun in Antalya. We aim to foster favorable conditions for its development and to address digital divide, including through expanded and better and affordable broadband access, flow of information for economic growth, trust and security, while ensuring respect for privacy and personal data protection, investment in the ICT sector, entrepreneurship, digital transformation, e-commerce cooperation, enhanced digital inclusion and development of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). We reaffirm paragraph 26 in the Antalya Communique, commit to offer policy support for an open and secure environment and recognize the key role of adequate and effective IPR protection and enforcement to the development of the digital economy. We welcome the efforts made by the OECD, IMF, national and other international organizations on the measurement of the digital economy, and recognize that further relevant research and exchange are needed.
15. We reiterate the essential role of structural reforms in boosting productivity and potential output, as well as promoting innovative growth in G20 countries. We deliver the Enhanced Structural Reform Agenda, noting that the choice and design of structural reforms are consistent with countries' specific economic conditions. We endorse the nine priority areas of structural reforms and a set of guiding principles identified in the Agenda to provide high-level and useful guidance to members, while allowing them to account for their specific national circumstances. We also support the quantitative framework consisting of a set of indicators, which will be improved over time, to help monitor and assess our efforts and progress with structural reforms and challenges. We are putting in place an integrated strategy for growth with short, medium and long-term measures. We will ensure that the Enhanced Structural Reform Agenda and the relevant elements of the Blueprint on Innovative Growth are well articulated.
