In 2015, the leaders agreed that ‘no country should conduct or support ICT-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information, with the intent of providing competitive advantages to companies or commercial sectors.’

In this briefing note, the authors conclude that the threat of state-sponsored economic cyber-espionage is more significant than ever, with countries industrialising their cyber-espionage efforts to target commercial firms and universities at a grander scale - and more of these targeted industries and universities are based in emerging economies.

In conditions of increased tensions between major powers, the survival of international rules, norms and principles comes under great pressure. But the need to uphold them becomes even more important, especially for middle and smaller powers, including emerging economies. 

Therefore, the authors are calling on the G20 leaders to reaffirm their previous agreement and task a G20 working group to further investigate the issue of state-sponsored, ICT-enabled theft of intellectual property (IP) for commercial gain.