Australia, Japan, India set up supply chain group

  • 28/04/21

Australia, India and Japan have agreed to work together to strengthen regional supply chains with continued disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The three governments yesterday formed the Supply Chain Resilience Initiative (SCRI), around seven months after the idea was first proposed. The SCRI aims to enhance supply chain resilience with the aim of "attaining strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth in the region", the countries said in a joint statement.

Covid-19 has created bottlenecks in global trade, including shortages of shipping containers and semiconductors. But the SCRI group also has a political dimension. All three members have troubled relations with China, which dominates regional supply chains because of its huge manufacturing base and control of supplies of rare earths and other specialty metals that are crucial to technology applications.

Australia, India and Japan make up three of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) forum members, together with the US. The Quad group, which was originally formed in 2007 and reinvigorated in 2017, has been pushed by the administrations of US presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden as a democratic counterweight to China's growing regional power.

A virtual meeting of the Quad group last month focused on addressing climate change and boosting Covid-19 manufacturing capacity, although Biden also pledged to work with the other members to confront China's assertive stance in the region.

All countries should work together to maintain global industrial and supply chains, rather than resorting to "artificial" supply chain programmes, China's foreign ministry spokesman said today in response to a question about the SCRI.


Sharelinkedin-sharetwitter-sharefacebook-shareemail-share

Business intelligence reports

Get concise, trustworthy and unbiased analysis of the latest trends and developments in oil and energy markets. These reports are specially created for decision makers who don’t have time to track markets day-by-day, minute-by-minute.

Learn more