UNCTAD press conference 18 September 2020

Good afternoon everyone.

We are going to start this press conference to present the Trade and Development Report 2020.

This report is under embargo until Tuesday at 8:00 PM Geneva time, Yes, 6:00 PM GMT.

We have the pleasure to have the Hunka, the the Deputy Secretary General Isabel Duhon online with us.

And Rishak is the right director and one of the the main author of this report.

And to present all the findings of this new research by Hong Tam.

I will first give the floor to Isabel Johor for a short introduction.

And Richard will take the floor.

We'll then take your questions.

You know how to raise your hand in the middle of the screen or in the room.

I think you know how to do that.

Thank you very much, Isabel Johor.

You have the floor.

Thank you, Catherine.

Catherine and then I will first try to set the scene of this report, which is very particular.

We are not yet in the post COVID.

Or in the building back better, even if this expression is becoming the new rhetoric.

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So uncertainty became a new norm, a new norm which is not easy, not easy for the economist because all the economists were parachuted by the lockdown in a very unfamiliar territory for them, witnessing shocks which we are reinforcing supply, demand and financial shocks together, that's one thing which is unusable.

It's a perfect storm and it explains how difficult it is to work on that and to make a perfect forecast.

Nevertheless, in this forest of uncertainties, there are a few certainties that this TDR tried to analyse to commence, and Richard Kozenweit will deepen in that.

So first of all, of course, contraction of global economy.

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The diminution you commerce in general on that of the diminution.

Like fragility was economic, we know that the time after 28 financial crisis has left unsustainable deaths, unaddressed inequalities and environmental destruction.

What we repeat regularly in all our contribution to the Secretary General Guterres and all the contribution that Huntat is doing regularly accordingly his mandate.

However, we feel some change and we see some change in tone and.

In.

Decision for instance.

We know that and also we just will explain that the G20 and also in the IMF, the moratorium on that is now decided for the selected number of countries, the post countries, yes, but it's only a suspension.

So we have to have in mind that it's of course not the, the, it's a decision which goes in the, the good direction.

But of course, we it's it's absolutely not sufficient in order to address the problem of debt.

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Macro economy technology.

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Thank you, Catherine, and good afternoon to everybody.

I'm going to try and I'm not going to go blow by blow through the report and try and situate the the different arguments that we have in a, in a, in a broad context.

Just to reiterate some of the things that Isabel just said.

I mean, clearly we are not at the end of this crisis.

I don't think we're even at the end of the beginning of this crisis.

And that generates a lot of uncertainty and unfamiliarity.

And as as Isabel said, the numbers that we have projected have to take that degree of uncertainty and unfamiliarity in mind.

That said, we continue to worry a lot about the disconnect between some of the language, particularly of national policy makers, about doing whatever it takes to address this crisis, and a lot of global confusion and weaknesses in the response of the international community, from which the developing countries are sure to be the biggest victims.

It's worth bearing in mind that this is the third major crisis that the world economy is going through in the new Millennium.

We had the wehadthe.com crisis and the 9/11 crisis in early 2000.

In the early 2000s, we had the global financial crisis.

Now we have this crisis and I think it's worth asking the question, will this crisis take us closer to the brink or will it open up a new era of cooperation, stability and prosperity?

We model both options in this in this report.

And I think it's I think it's important to recognise these are options.

It will be policy choices and political leadership, not epidemiological destiny, that determines the course of the global economy over the over the coming over the coming years.

What's going on at the moment, We have to say that the situation is worse than we thought it would be when we put out our first report on COVID-19 in early March.

But it's not probably as bad as many forecasts forecasters were talking about in June, when there was a more of an apocalyptic tone to a lot of the projections.

We expect to see the world economy contract by around 4.3% this year in terms of where we should have been.

Now that's a $6 trillion hit to the global economy in compared with what economists were forecasting at the end of of 2019, early 2020.

That's a significant fall in, in, in global output.

Of course it's it's, it's very generalised, but it's an uneven pattern.

All countries, all regions except for East Asia, we expect to see contraction this year, but some have already been hit much harder than others.

We've seen very large quarterly growth drops in some large emerging economies, India and South Africa in particular, but there have been very large swings in growth in all of the advanced economies as well.

That said, the damage is going to be most severe in the developing world, and that's partly because the capacity of the developing countries to respond to this kind of shock is clearly much weaker.

And we've seen very large relief packages adopted by the major advanced economies.

The estimates vary, but a figure of $13 trillion has been banded around for the scale of packages adopted by the large G20 economies.

What that has certainly done and that's AI mean that those are very large packages that certainly stopped the kind of financial meltdown that we saw in in 2009.

And that's, that's clearly a good thing.

But the international support for the, as I said, for developing countries so far has clearly been insufficient given the kind of damage, economic damage, which will be long lasting, given that damage that has hit developing countries.

So it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a fairly bleak picture with only one or two exceptions that have seemed to manage the crisis with some degree of alacrity.

What's coming next is the, is obviously the question that we need to answer.

We, we don't address the epidemic epidemiological trajectory.

We can't, we don't assume that another lockdown is coming.

Most political leaders have said that they can't foresee another lockdown and we haven't tried to factor that into our analysis.

If there is a lockdown, much of what we have to say obviously will will change quite dramatically.

What we expect to see next year is a technical rebound in the global economy that comes from the unlocking of the shutdown and the and combined with these very large relief packages that have been put in place, we estimate a 4.1% increase in the global economy for 20/21.

That assumes policy continuity and that's a very important point.

We are assuming that there is no change in the relatively aggressive macroeconomic stances, particularly monetary but also fiscal over the coming year.

It's not AV shaped recovery, however, AV shaped recovery.

That is a recovery that took us back to where we should have been by the end of 2020.

You would need a double digit growth rate in the global economy and we're certainly not going to see a double digit growth rate.

Moreover, we expect next year to be 1 of rising unemployment in the advanced economy, certainly and probably in many developing countries, and rising bankruptcies.

Debt distress as, as as Isabel said, the debt situation has been magnified from an already difficult position at the end of 2019 and there will be considerable debt distress in many countries.

So talk of AV recovery, we think AV shaped recovery is is misleading.

The great concern we have is over the issue beyond that of policy continuity.

We're already seeing mixed signals particularly in the advanced economies.

Many of you will have seen that Jay Powell, the head of the Federal Reserve, has essentially said that interest rates in the United States will be 0 or close to 0 for the next two to three years, which is a necessary move.

At the same time, the Congress cannot agree amongst itself to come up with a follow up package to the CARES Act that was introduced earlier this year.

And a lot of economists in the United States are saying that if the US does not come up with a new stimulus package in the coming months before the election, they are talking about the possible wasteland emerging in large parts of the United States.

So this contradiction between the fiscal and monetary side that we see in a number of countries is certainly a a worrying signal in terms of where the policy initiatives are likely to head.

In the case of the, the European Union, of course, we've seen this very large stimulus package of €750 billion that was announced a couple of months ago and important the word historic, of course, has been banded around a lot.

But it is an important shift in terms of the mutualisation of, of, of debt that lies behind that package.

Whether it's enough to overcome the problems of 2 speed Europe remains to be seen and, and Europe is in at least two speeds.

The difference between a Germany that was not hit as hard by the by the shock and has already begun to recover and as and a country like Spain is palpable.

Spain has large youth unemployment.

It has very many small enterprises that are are are particularly vulnerable and it has a very heavy dependence on tourism as part of its growth dynamic.

This makes a country like Spain particularly vulnerable.

Whether this package will work to alleviate that kind of divergent I think remains to be seen.

And we see similar problems in the UK which has adopted a fairly large stimulus package, but is also struggling ambiguously with with with Brexit For developing countries as I said before, heavy squeezing of their fiscal positions, significant tightening of financial constraints.

We talked about a two to three, two to $3 trillion financial shortage in developing countries over the last 18 months.

We, we, we're not going to change our, our assessment of that.

There is a huge financing constraint facing developing countries and the initiatives so far from the international community have been feeble at best.

I think I take the numbers, the Debt Service Sustainability initiative, which is the initiative launched by the G20 is offering something in the order of $12 billion to 73 largely low income developing countries.

And of course, twelve $12 billion is important.

But in the in the face of the constraint that I talk, financing constraint I talked about, it's clearly just a drop in the bucket.

Worse than that, if you put it against the kind of incomes that have been generated in this crisis, there's a certain level of obscenity to this kind of number.

Mark Zuckerberg's wealth increased by something in the order of $25 billion between March and June.

The latest figures that came out today from one of the American think tanks puts the increase in the wealth of American billionaires during the COVID-19 pandemic at $850 billion.

That would be essentially enough to wipe out the entire debt of low and many middle income countries if it was, if it was reallocated.

So there's something deeply wrong about the way in which that the rules of the game of this global economy economy continue to work.

And that's a theme that we talk about extensively in chapter in Chapter 3 of this, of the report.

The, the kind of last issue that we, I want to raise and we talked about in the report is, you know what, what's going to, who's going to win out?

Which vision for the global economy is going to win out in, in responding to the COVID shock.

And there is, I think there are essentially 2 competing visions that that we talk about in this report and around which we structure our policy proposals.

1 is a vision of austerity, essentially repeating the kinds of policies that were adopted after the 2000 and eight 2009 crisis.

That means spending cuts.

It means more liberalisation, it means also low interest rates, LAX monetary policy was part of the responses 2009 crisis.

And as as Powell has made clear, that will continue in response to COVID-19.

That's a narrative about, you know, the role of the private sector, getting us out of this crisis, about re globalisation, about the the potential benefits of technology.

I think it's worth when you hear that kind of narrative and there's increasing talk in policy circles around these themes where that policy package left us in 2019.

In 2019, that policy package left us with booming stock markets, **** levels of debt, and stagnant wages.

It left us with a fiscal squeeze which left many governments unprepared for the kind of shock, both health and economic, that we are looking at currently.

And it left a degree of hyper inequality which has led to polarisation not only in the economic realm but also in the political realm.

If that policy measure and we offer a modelling of this in the report, if that, if that is the policy route that we take out of the COVID crisis, we expect to see a double dip recession probably in late 19, in late 21 or early 22, followed by a significant significantly slower growth than occurred after the 2009 crisis.

Higher higher unemployment in both developed and developing countries, a much lower wage share and and and relatively unsustainable public debt positions for the United Nations.

It basically would mean the end of the 2030 Agenda.

You cannot deliver the 2030 Agenda in that kind of global environment.

The alternative that we see is an expansionary global recovery plan.

We assume that inflation is not going to be a ****** in this world.

We see no signs of inflationary pressures in the global economy and we also believe the private sector will be too weak to drive a recovery.

Investment will be highly uncertain because businesses don't know what is coming and you cannot export your way out of the global crisis.

Some countries might be able to, but the world as a whole cannot export its way out of the global crisis.

So the public sector must lead any sort of sustained global recovery and and such a strategy must be LED of course by the countries that are best able to drive that kind of strategy, which is the advanced, which is the advanced economy, the leading G20 countries.

The focus of that strategy of course will be full employment, a demand LED full employment strategy with the appropriately balanced macro policies, fiscal and monetary, but with a greater emphasis on fiscal than on the monetary side of policies that we saw after 2009.

For developing countries, I think it does mean a much more of a focus on industrial employment, which has been a a, a, a sticking block for development in many countries after 2009.

We show that this is a self-sustaining strategy that is a a a properly managed, that demand LED strategy can pay for itself given the kinds of Growth Dynamics that it will unleash.

Taxes will increase sufficiently to be able to cover any sort of debts that emerge on the public balance sheet.

We do think that this strategy should be complemented by strong labour market policies.

Wages need to increase significantly to give a further boost to demand in the global economy.

That's not what happened again after 2000 and eight, 2009.

And we, we offer various policies, incomes policies and various support policies that we think are necessary to boost wages in line with any kind of productivity growth.

It's not only a full employment economy, it should be a full employment green economy too.

This is a message that we offered in last year's trade and development report, Again emphasising the lead that public investment has to take in shifting the growth dynamic towards a carbon neutral outcome, focusing on energy efficiency and a shift in the energy mix towards renewables.

Again, we think that that's a strategy that's can pay for itself.

And of course, in light of COVID, there needs to be an emphasis on the care economy, public services, the healthcare system, universal basic income, these ideas that need to be put onto the table and followed through on if we're going to get a more resilient recovery than than occurred after 2000 and eight, 2009.

We show in the report that if you put this kind of strategy together effectively, you combine it with not just macro economic policies, but industrial policies, labour market policies, financial policies, then not only will growth be higher, the distribution of income will be fairer, unemployment will be lower, but the public debt will be much more sustainable than it would be under a strategy of austerity.

So austerity will not, not only will it fail to deliver growth, it will fail to deliver what it usually promises on the tin, which is to put government budgets back into shape.

That will not happen under austerity because budget, sustainable budgets depend on tax revenues and if you don't generate the growth that can deliver increases in taxes, you won't have a sustainable budget position.

So, so we think this is a viable alternative.

I think the report tries to show that.

However, for developing countries, it does mean a significant amount of international support.

Developing countries are not in the same position of most advanced economies in terms of their fiscal space.

They don't issue a currency that is acceptable on on global markets.

They are heavily dependent on international borrowing, etcetera.

The things that we've talked about extensively in in Hunk add.

So we're going to have to see a different kind of multilateral support if a global recovery strategy is going to embrace not only the advanced economies but the developing countries too.

And the thought goes through a number of proposals, some short term measures that we think are necessary, a new allocation of special drawing rights to ease the liquidity constraint.

Debt relief, not just debt suspension.

As Isabel said, suspension does not create more fiscal space for developing countries.

It simply kicks the can down the road.

We do need to see serious debt relief, including involvement of the private sector.

And we we need to see tax reform at the international level.

That is, multinational corporations need to be taxed properly.

It's it's it's inappropriate that large companies that are sitting on trillions of dollars of cash can get away with paying almost no taxes by various types of manipulation and use of tax havens.

And we need to clamp down on illicit financial flows that have a very damaging effect on the on the fiscal space of developing countries.

We also need to expand policies in developing countries.

We need capital controls.

We need to ease condition conditionalities on on international lending.

We need to see various changes in the international trading system.

We'd like to see a peace clause on, on, on WTO disputes where COVID-19 related issues are in play, a moratorium on ISDIS disputes.

And I think we would like to see a finally a close of the Doha development agenda.

Given that we need to rebuild trust in the international trading system if it is to contribute to this kind of inclusive global recovery.

But I don't think these are short term measures that actually don't require a lot of changes in the structure of the international government system.

We do think 75 years on and we're we're celebrating 75 years this year of the UN.

You know, we should be learning something from the class of 1945.

Ambition for managing an interdependent global economy was at the heart of the discussions around Bretton Woods and San Francisco 75 years ago.

And we need to be able to rekindle that spirit if we're going to build the kind of multilateralism that can genuinely deliver the kind of global recovery recovery we are talking about.

And we have various proposals in the report where we think there are big gaps in the system that need to be closed.

They won't happen overnight, but it's the kind of things that need the international community needs to start talking about.

We need a global competition authority, given the dominance of very large and powerful international corporations in shaping economic outcomes, particularly of vulnerable economies.

We need a global debt authority, something that has talked about a lot over the years, but has become even more apparent in the context of COVID-19.

We think you need an international credit rating agency, given the biases that we see in the private credit rating agencies that have not worked to create the kind of balance that we think is necessary when it comes to the management of of debt.

We talk about a Marshall Plan for a health recovery that I think is a necessary part of a more dedicated effort in terms of form of the of the long term financing focused on health of course, but focused on also the the broader challenges that developing countries face that are linked to health around sanitation, around housing, etcetera.

So, so I think there are a set of global changes that we also articulate in the report that we think would be consistent with the with the ambition that has been expressed in the 2030 agenda and we think are necessary to building a genuinely inclusive, it's a global recovery this this time around.

Thank you very much.

Now the floor is open for question.

You have the raise hand button on the, I think on the right hand side of your screen.

Please don't mind.

In the meantime, I want to let you know that press kits are now available in Chinese, French and Arabic in the virtual press room.

We are waiting for the Spanish one for the end of the day.

I don't see any question on lines and no question in the room.

Isabel, Johan, maybe you want to add something at this stage.

I think that.

Do you hear me?

Yeah.

OK.

Yeah, please go ahead.

So I think that this report that you can read and analyse in the detail open some some ways or some Ave in order to what just Richard mentioned in order to put some milestone in the 2030 agenda, which is of course in big danger.

And I think that the relevance of Unkat at that time not only with this report, but globally the what we are providing regularly each each week with papers, analysis, with technical cooperation, etcetera.

I'm totally convinced that not only in that alone, of course, but that the relevance to combine trade and development, trade and technology and all the problems that we know about the digital economy and the very, very inequal distribution of of economic benefit of digital economy.

I think that in that we have to work more and more and the support of our Member States.

You know that we will have our next conference in April next year, the the quadrienal conference of Huntat.

And I think that it's really a momentum where something has to happen.

It was just say it was not an orderly because it's the anniversary of the, the the UN, but because the situation really today requires a kind of charge more the cap.

And I think that there are a lot of things that Umtach said or explain or try to provide or try to equip in the the developing countries in order to help them to take a good decision.

It's not on the table, not only of the UN as such, but on the table of each government, of each group of countries and especially the the biggest one or the most influencing, influencing ones.

And it's why we will.

So I said in the beginning, we will continue to do that and trying to show how important it is to to to really put some steps in the good in the useful direction, if we will, about all what may be.

It could be, it could happen if we are exactly repeating what we did or what was done after the previous crisis.

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You have the floor.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you for my question would be simple for why you underlined urgently needed to better economy recover.

Well, that means urgently and could you speak more about word out to the growth you have estimated or to 2021 and could you speak about that more?

Thank you.

In terms of the recovery in 2021, I but there were, there is almost certain to be a recovery.

I mean the, the lockdown was in a way artificial, right?

The economy was put on in, in it was a self induced coma, right.

And as soon as we begin to lock down, we're going to see an increasing economic activity that's almost inevitable unless, unless there are some very unless there's a further lockdown or there's some very problematic things in financial markets that we haven't yet seen.

So, so there's definitely going to be, there's going to be a recovery of some kind next year for the global economy.

It will be uneven.

We know that some, I mean China for example, we, we project a fairly robust growth rate for, for next year.

Other parts of the developing world will not grow as strongly as as East Asia, but, but we expect to see a, a, a broad recovery as a consequence of, of the easing of the lockdown and the maintenance of relatively expansionary policies.

And that's, and that's going to be true in all the advanced economies.

I guess I'll, as I said, our worry is really what will happen in terms of the policy that the policy approach that is adopted from the big from the middle of next year as as as the economy registers strong growth, will governments resort to a return to austerity, cutting back the need to repress wages in order to generate export revenues, etcetera.

That the kind of things that we saw from 2010 onwards.

What worries us about that strategy is that the world economy, many economies within it, are in a weaker position today than they will be than they were in 2010, two, 1011.

And that's because we've had 10 years of relatively weak, fragile growth with a very heavy dependence on debt and low interest rates as the engine of growth.

And it hasn't produced strong growth, but it has created a lot of fragilities in the developing world in particular, but not only in many advanced economies.

For example, the corporate sector, private business has borrowed extensively over the course of the last 10 years.

It's true in China as well, for example, but not as extensively as as the United States, where corporate borrowing has been very, very **** over the last decade.

But rather than using that borrowing to invest in new plant, equipment, research and development, a huge amount of that borrowing has has gone into financial manipulation, buying the shares of your company, paying dividends to your share owners, etcetera.

And so behind the borrowing has not been a strong investment drive in most countries.

There are exceptions, but that's the case in most countries.

So there's there's real fragilities that have been exposed by COVID-19.

And if we do go back to the kinds of policies that we saw after 2009, then then we're worried that there could be a, a, a, a much more a debt.

We call it a lost decade.

We see a lost decade ahead if we repeat the mistakes of the 2000 of the last decade.

And I'm sure they'll be within that.

They'll be countries.

Some countries will do worse than others.

But the broad picture for the global economy under a under a regime of austerity is fairly bleak.

And it's a choice.

I mean, what what it's not, it's not inevitable that policy makers follow this kind of strategy.

It's a choice.

And and behind that choice are questions of politics and leadership and other factors that, you know, we have to look at and think about.

But the broad outcome would be detrimental for the vast majority of countries in the global economy.

Thank you very much.

Yes, put you up for a follow up and then we'll go to the.

Yes, thank you for that.

But it's all depends on the independent policies or of new lockdown and if vaccination has been promised.

Is that look that yeah, I mean, vaccination is not we can't vaccinate our way out of this crisis.

I don't think I mean we will need a vaccination, but the underlying pre-existing conditions that have been exaggerated by the crisis can only be solved through economic policy, not through not through medical breakthroughs.

So so yes, we need a vaccine, that's quite clear.

But it's having a vaccine will not address the problems of global inequality.

It will not address the problems of **** levels of indebtedness.

It will not address the problems of financial fragility.

It will not address the problems of of weak public services due to a decade of austerity.

So it's not yet that, yes, we need a vaccine, absolutely.

But that's not that's that's that's the beginning of the challenge, not the end of the challenge.

Thank you.

We have a question online from Kashmira Jefford.

Can you identify your media please?

You have the floor, Yes.

Hello, Kashmir Jefford from Geneva Solutions.

Apologies that I missed the first few minutes or so.

I was.

Wondering if you could?

Elaborate on this idea of, you know, a global competition authority and how we can address the dominance of these large corporations a bit further.

Thank you.

Yeah.

I mean, I mean we point, I mean we pointed out and I think in the 2018 report, international trade is, is very heavily dominated by a small number of very large firms.

I, I, I don't have the figures at hand, but something like 5% of firms account for over 50% of global trade.

And these are very large powerful firms that that essentially escape any or have the ability to escape regulatory authority and particularly with respect to developing countries are in a kind of mock monopsonistic position that gives them a huge amount of power to extract rents from those countries.

And that's true whether you're talking about classic commodity exports or in the large parts of the manufacturing supply chains that have proliferated over the course of the last two decades.

And we showed in in an earlier report that the distribution of gains along those chains have been hugely skewed in favour of these lead firms that have these various restrictive business practises of which intellectual property has become perhaps the most prominent that allows them to generate large rents at the expense of other producers.

Now the Internet we don't see, we all know.

I mean, you know, there's been a huge discussion in advanced economies in Western Europe and, and North America in particular, about the need to what the Americans call the return to antitrust policy.

Antitrust policy was essentially hollowed out in the 1970s and the 1980s under the kind of drive for a more neoliberal policy agenda on the assumption that all that mattered was the price of the, of the final product and, and, and, and not how the the returns of production were distributed across the value chain.

So there's been a real increase in the US and, and I think in Western Europe too.

You can see that with the discussions on taxation about the need to strengthen regulation beyond national borders that can deal with these kinds of corporate abuses.

And there's clearly a a gap in the global architecture when it comes to this.

Back in the 1980s, Ungtad was responsible for designing a series of principles to handle restricted business practises by large international firms.

They still technically they are on the books of the General Assembly, but there is no institutional arrangements in which those kinds of principles and the monitoring that that is needed to ensure that abusive practises are not, are not threatening the economic opportunities of developing countries.

There's no institutional framework for for those kind of principles to be properly administered.

So I think I think it's just one of the many gaps in the international architecture that, given the way in which the global economy has evolved over the last two or three decades, needs to be filled if we're going to do what we all claim we want to do, which is to recover better, which essentially probably means in a fairer and more sustainable fashion.

You can't.

We don't think that's possible if large footloose corporations are essentially allowed to stalk the global economy, extracting rents at whatever opportunities that they can that they can find.

So, yeah, we think that that kind of arrangement is a necessary part of a more balanced governance architecture.

Thank you very much.

I would, I would ask something.

Yeah, Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, I, I just want to add two things.

First of all, COVID-19 has also increased the market concentration because the biggest firms, of course, are less vulnerable than the smallest 1.

And in to a certain extent, COVID-19 reinforced this concentration market.

And so it's why it's important to work on this, on this regulatory framework.

There is two ways to discuss that of course, the an authority as such, but also to work through the another angle or another perspective, which is the reshaping or regionalization of the value chain.

So we know that the global value chain so long are of course dominated by the biggest firms.

And if you would like to really try to give more sovereignty to a certain extent to different regions and in the world or different countries, you have to have regionalised or more regionalised and reshaping of the value chain.

That's another way to have a kind of regulatory indirectly a regulation against those this concentration of market.

Thank you.

I don't see any additional question give you a few extra minutes to to push the raise hand button.

I would like to let you know that there's a a huge team of economists next to research to prepare this report.

They're available for interviews in very in a lot of different languages.

So don't hesitate to contact us to to check if you can dig deeper into this report.

I understand that it's all clear.

I don't see any question.

Do you want to make a closing remark on or Madame Juhor or?

I mean, we in the the report, it's, it's, I mean, it's an important point that Isabel makes.

Regionalisation has been a strong trend since the since the 2009 crisis.

We show in the report that regional regional trade has strengthened even as global trade has weakened the global trading.

Global trade was was quite weak after 2009 for obvious reasons linked to the slow growth of the global economy.

But regional trade has remained quite robust and there are three principal hubs of regional trade who have the North American hub around NAFTA, you have the European hub, particularly around Germany and and the automotive industry to the east.

And of course you have the East Asian, you have the East Asian hub.

So we've we've already seen the emergence of very strong regional patterns.

I think the concern is that large parts of the developing world of course have been excluded from from those patterns and to Latin America for example, does not have very strong regional arrangements, nor does Africa, although there are attempts of course now to create a free trade area for for the continent.

But but we have seen these very strong regional trends.

I think there are certain sectors where very large corporations can span those regional arrangements and can and can play different regions offers they've done different countries.

And I think I think regionalization is an important trend, but it's not a solution given the economic, the concentration of economic power in in some of these very large corporations.

So I think I don't think it's an either or solution.

I think I think you need to move in both directions.

Thank you very much.

I think we're going to stop here and another information the the Italian press kit is available online.

So we are working in other languages than the six UN usually presented.

Thank you very much.

The next report will be on illicit financial flows.

It's been mentioned during the presentation it will focus on Africa.

It's the economic development in Africa report.

It will be in two in 10 days.

In no.

Yeah, in 10 days.

I will give you more information about this one.

The trade and development report is under embargo until Tuesday, 22nd of September at 6:00 PM GMT, 8:00 PM Geneva time.

Merci Boku, thank you very much and have a nice weekend.

Bye.