India, Russia and China on Monday, besides jointly condemning terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, emphasised the importance of an open and inclusive world economy enabling all countries to share the benefits of globalisation. External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj in a joint address to the media along with her Russian and Chinese counterparts, Sergey Lavrov and Wang Yi, respectively, said, “Our discussions today were focused on four broad clusters of areas, namely, economic and developmental issues, fight against terrorism, global and multilateral issues, and regional issues.” Swaraj referred to the rise of India ranking in the World Bank Ease of Doing Business report to 100th this year, and said: “I have invited China and Russia for a more intensive trade and economic partnership so that they can take advantage of the economic opportunities available here.” Stating that the UN’s Sustainable Developmental Goals (SDGs) mirror India’s own vision of development, she said Indian initiatives such as Smart Cities, Make in India, etc, closely relates to several targets under SDGs.
“We remain firmly committed to a rule-based, transparent, non-discriminatory, open and inclusive multilateral trading system as embodied in the WTO. We reaffirm our commitments to ensure full implementation and enforcement of existing WTO rules and are determined to work together to further strengthen the WTO,” stated the joint statement.