BESIDES MULLING over climate change and global corporate tax, and pow-wowing with the Pope, there was one last-minute addition to the agenda at the G20 Summit in Rome that Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed to without batting an eyelid—a meeting hurriedly convened by US President Joe Biden. The agenda? Discuss supply chain challenges and other disruptions affecting global commerce.
“Supply chains are something that most citizens never think twice about until something goes wrong,” said Biden at the meet. “Now that we have seen how vulnerable these lines of global commerce can be, we cannot go back to business as usual.”
Chipped in Modi: “In the initial months of the pandemic, we all felt the shortage of raw materials to make essential medicines, health equipment and vaccines. Now that the world is gearing up for economic recovery, the supply problems of semiconductors and other commodities are coming in the way of healthy growth.”
The supply chain is the non-glamorous stepsister of global business; she toils away in the kitchen and the backyard, and nobody talks about her as long as the work gets done. But when this sis stops working and throws a fit, the world and its boardrooms and showrooms sit up and take note.
And, that is exactly what has happened now.
This story is from the November 21, 2021 edition of THE WEEK.
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This story is from the November 21, 2021 edition of THE WEEK.
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