G20

ICC launches G20 Advisory Group for CEO input to Heads of State

  • 24 May 2011
ICC Management

Business leaders and CEOs from major global corporations convened at the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris today for the inaugural meeting of the ICC G20 Advisory Group, a global business initiative aimed at delivering policy input to the G20 process.

The ICC G20 Advisory Group is channelling its efforts ahead of the G20 Summit – being held in Cannes, France, on 3-4 November 2011 – to introduce a set of policy views representing the priorities of businesses worldwide, both large and small.

“The G20’s expanding policy agenda directly impacts business’s core goals for trade, economic growth and job creation. We must establish an ongoing public-private partnership to ensure that the input and priorities of companies driving the world economy are better reflected in government resolutions”, said ICC Vice-Chairman Harold McGraw III, who is also Chairman, President and CEO, The McGraw-Hill Companies.

ICC has established the G20 Advisory Group, comprised of CEOs, to effectively target G20 policy development on a global scale. The group aims to establish an enduring, legitimate voice of global business – eventually recognized by the G20 governments as the primary source of business expertise on the global policy agenda.

“We want to press for the inclusion of business views in deliberations by G20 Heads of State and to introduce fresh ideas and innovative programmes to support open trade, economic growth and employment,” said ICC Secretary General Jean-Guy Carrier.

ICC has a long history of providing business views into forums like the G20. Starting in 1990 at the Houston G8 Summit, ICC’s Chairman has met annually with G8 host Heads of State – enabling ICC to input the voice of world business. Ahead of the 2009 London G20 Summit, then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown invited ICC to take a lead role representing global business to the G20, a role that expanded in the lead-up to the G20 Summit in Seoul in 2010, when ICC contributed policy recommendations and led working sessions at the G20 Business Summit.

“As the world business organization, ICC is well placed to provide concrete feedback to governments, encouraging them to take into account business objectives such as promoting trade liberalization and cross border investment,” said Gerard Worms, ICC Chairman and Vice Chairman of Rothschild Europe.

To this end, ICC is mobilizing its policymaking expertise, drawn from companies of all sizes and business organizations around the world. The G20 Advisory Group is able to leverage ICC’s vast business network in more than 120 countries, as well as the diverse wealth of experience and insight the CEOs bring.

“This is an exciting and powerful new opportunity for business. The issues on the agenda are crucial to ICC, and the time has come for business to play a much stronger role in the G20 process,” Mr Worms said.

ICC is building an enduring platform aimed at generating solid policy work before, during and after the G20 Summit events – from France to Mexico and beyond. The ICC G20 initiative is a consultative process on a truly global scale.

CEOs on the ICC G20 Advisory Group include:

The G20 Advisory Group policy work has been shaped to concentrate on the 2011 agenda of G20 issues as set by the host country France, as well as on priorities the Advisory Group wishes to see addressed.

These are:

Global business input on these issues will be delivered to G20 leaders starting at the government “Sherpa” level in the lead-up to Cannes. ICC will unveil these policy positions as the meetings unfold.