India has received “tremendous” support from the G20-nations on its suggestion on mutual recognition of travel documents, including testing and vaccine certificates, and that the grouping has endorsed New Delhi’s position that extensive Covid-19 immunisation is a global public good, India's Sherpa for G20 Piyush Goyal said on Friday.
“Broadly, the G20 nations have endorsed India's position that extensive covid-19 immunisation is a global public good. I am also happy to share with you that we got tremendous support from the G20 nations for our suggestion on mutual recognition of travel documents, including testing and vaccine certificates,” he said.

Goyal participated in the sixth G20 Sherpas’ meeting from October 27-29 in Rome.
On the issue of mutual recognition of vaccine certificates, Goyal said that by and large, there is a broad consensus on this because all nations wish to restart travel, economic activities and bring back normalcy.

“The huge role that India is playing both in the vaccination plan in India and the role that we are playing and we proposed to play in the coming months and years to help the world vaccinate, has been widely welcomed by almost all G20 nations and we are working towards an acceptable language to bring that within the G20 framework,” he said, adding that the issues were taken up during the meeting of G20 Sherpas in Rome.

When asked whether something on this will be there in the G20 declaration, Goyal said: “We are quite confident that there is a broad consensus and the language is being worked out on how we can bring it in”.
On the proposed patent waiver proposal, submitted by India and South Africa, Goyal said it is under discussion in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and India has also flagged this in the G20 meet.

The agenda of the just concluded Sherpas’ meeting to finalize the Rome Declaration, will be adopted by the Leaders at the G20 Summit.
Tax, data, climate
Goyal, who is also commerce and industry minister, said that India has also pushed the G20 members to address the mismatch between source of generation of profits and the jurisdiction where profits are taxed as this will ensure that large multinational corporations pay a minimum effective corporate tax in the country of their operation. Moreover, New Delhi strongly pushed for the need for balancing in the ‘data free flow with trust’ narrative with cross-border data  flows and accommodating development imperatives of the developing countries.

When asked about economic defaulters, he said India is a strong proponent of global action in this regard.
“There are laws of land of different countries which have to be respected. But we are trying to build up a coalition and that is the role India played as co-chair of the working group also to try and bring a broader consensus for faster action on economic defaulters looking for safe haven,” he said.

On economic recovery, as co-chairs of the G20 Framework Working Group, India is ensuring that there is no premature withdrawal of support and the most vulnerable sections are provided necessary support.