India elected as Vice-Chair of IPEF’s Supply Chain Council
Pursuant to Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF’s) Supply Chain Agreement, India and 13 other IPEF partners have established three supply chain bodies. These bodies include:
- Supply Chain Council: To pursue targeted, action-oriented work to strengthen supply chains for those sectors and goods most critical to national security, public health, etc.
- Crisis Response Network: To provide a forum for a collective emergency response to exigent or imminent disruptions.
- Labor Rights Advisory Board: To bring together workers, employers, and governments at the same table to strengthen labor rights and workforce development across regional supply chains.
Supply Chain Resilience (SCR)
- SCR is the ability of a supply chain network to withstand disruptions and minimize the effects of upheaval on revenues, costs and customers.
- Supply Chain is the interconnected journey of a raw materials, or products from their assembly to final sale.
- Threats to SCR: Geo-political (e.g., disruption in energy supplies due to conflict between Russia-Ukraine), Economic (e.g., COVID-induced demand and supply shocks), etc.
- Measures taken for SCR by India
- Global: Supply Chain Resilience Initiative (Australia, India, and Japan), Quad Supply Chain Initiative, etc.
- Domestic: PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan, National Logistics Policy, PLI Scheme for different sectors, etc.
About IPEF
- Launched: In 2022 at Tokyo (Japan).
- Members (14): Australia, Brunei, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and USA.
- Objective: To strengthen economic engagement among partner countries to advance growth, peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region.
- Four pillars: Trade (Pillar I); Supply Chain Resilience (Pillar II); Clean Economy (Pillar III); and Fair Economy (Pillar IV).
- India has joined Pillars II to IV of IPEF while it has maintained an observer status in Pillar-I