Osaka Declaration on Digital Economy

We, the Leaders of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Spain, Chile, Netherlands, Senegal, Singapore, Thailand, and Viet Nam, share the view that digitalization is transforming every aspect of our economies and societies, and data is increasingly becoming an important source of economic growth, and its effective use should contribute to social well-being in all countries.

We affirm the importance of promoting national and international policy discussions for harnessing the full potential of data and digital economy to foster innovation, so that we can keep pace with the fast-growing digital economy and maximize the benefits of digitalization and emerging technologies.

Today, we, standing together with other WTO Members that participate in the Joint Statement on Electronic Commerce issued in Davos on 25 January 2019, in which 78 WTO Members are on board, hereby declare the launch of the “Osaka Track”, a process which demonstrates our commitment to promote international policy discussions, inter alia, international rule-making on trade-related aspects of electronic commerce at the WTO.

In this regard, we renew our commitment to work together building on the Joint Statement in Davos and confirm our commitment to seek to achieve a high standard agreement with the participation of as many WTO Members as possible. We are encouraged by the progress made so far, and resolve to make further efforts to achieve substantial progress in the negotiations by the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference in June 2020.

Building on these efforts, we will engage in international policy discussions for harnessing the full potential of data and digital economy, and increase efforts to engage with relevant international fora for that purpose.