 Good afternoon. I'm Rick Sammons, I'm a managing board member of the World Economic Forum. Thanks so very much for joining us this afternoon for this press conference, marking the launch of the E-15 initiatives report. It's actually an edited volume of a range of specific proposals that have been developed by 18 multi-stakeholder expert groups over the last two-plus years, supported by 16 partner institutes from around the world, engaging about 375 different experts from academia, from the private sector, from governments or the official sector as well. And this edited volume has, I think, 16 different specific chapters of recommendations that look forward 10 years and suggest a pathway of specific proposals that would help to improve the cooperative architecture, and that is to say not only formal trade rules, but also wider cooperative arrangements that would improve the performance in many respects of the international trade and investment system in the 21st century. This is an initiative that's been undertaken jointly by the World Economic Forum's Global Challenge Initiative on International Trade and Investment, and the International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development, which actually originated the process over two years ago. And I'm joined by my colleague at the very end, Ricardo Melendez Ortiz, who's the chief executive ICTSD, here along with a very distinguished panel, Nils Anderson, who's the CEO of Maersk, Amina Mohamed, minister of Kenya for trade. Next to her is Christia Freeland, minister of trade, and I'm not sure I remember the rest of the portfolio. I know you have a larger portfolio as well in the new government of Canada. And Mike Froman, who is, as many people will hear will know, is the United States trade representative. Let me just say a word or two about the substance and the future direction of this process, and then I'll invite each of our colleagues here to offer their perspective. This has been a remarkable process, not only because it has an unprecedented degree of process really, of engagement, blending together perspectives, and we deliberately asked these groups of experts to look beyond the current political cycle. We asked them to think structurally, not incrementally, and we asked them to think expansively, systemically, not just within the domain of what is traditionally considered trade law, and certainly not limited to the WTO itself. This enabled us to take a much wider view of what assets in international economic cooperation could be combined to help deepen and strengthen various aspects of the performance of the international trade and investment system. What I would do is just give you two or three quick top line outcomes. I would simply say that first, that what is remarkable I think, as I looked across this and preparing with Ricardo and the teams, the synthesis report of this vast body of work, is that if you do step back from a more specific focus on the WTO or even just the traditional domain of trade ministers in setting formal norms, and you look at that wider architecture of cooperation in the system, you begin to see possibilities to put together specific proposals and initiatives of different geometries that across them actually result in an agenda that is a common agenda. It may not be a WTO single undertaking in the formal sense of the term that we've come to understand it, but it actually represents a common project, if you will, that in which as far as we can tell, every region and every major constituency would fundamentally benefit. So it is one of the takeaways that I find from the process is that just because the world was not able to agree last month on whether or how or in what nature to continue the specific agenda on the table in the Doha round at this point in time doesn't mean it's not possible to put together a common endeavor to strengthen the system. Secondly, we are here in a week at a point in time in the business cycle, if you will, where there are deep worries about global economic growth. Countries are searching for new sources, we're worried about fragility and resilience, and frankly, from my perspective, the international trade and investment system is an underutilized asset in building a stronger growth equation for the world economy. This particular set of outcomes, as you'll see in the synthesis, lays out a very practical set of, we think, not only conceivable but also plausible steps that could be taken by various parties working in concert that don't require a multilateral agreement that would add a significant degree of impetus to world economic activity. And last, one of the biggest quandaries in this entire field over the years has been in a world of increasing variable geometry, regional trade agreements, pro-lateral agreements. There's been a lingering and even sometimes deepening worry about what is called in the field the spaghetti bowl. Are we fragmenting too much? Is it beginning to divert trade? Are we going to end up eliminating or substantially watering down the basic principle that is at the heart of the GATT and the WTO, which is non-discrimination, a positive sum game? Everybody benefits. And here we lay out a very specific set of ideas as a result of these expert groups that actually provide a pathway, a view of how pieces of the variable geometry could start to be assembled modularily, call it modular multilateralization, that begins to help to bend the system back toward ultimately, over time, a stronger multilateral core and therefore a deepened legitimacy of the system. And I won't say anything more, but there's such a rich array of ideas coming up from the group. I leave it to my colleagues and those of you to reflect upon. With that, let me turn first to Neal Zandersen of Maersk for your comments. The basic question I have for each of our colleagues up here is a two-fold one. What might you see as one of the two important priorities for strengthening the system in the 21st century? And would you like to comment on any of the particular ideas that have come out so far of this E15 process? All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I would like to start by sort of commending the work that has been going on here in the World Economic Forum over the last years on trade facilitation and facilitating cross-border investments. There's no doubt, and we've proven that, and I think everybody agrees, that this is very, very good for growth. Therefore, it's of course also a bit worrying that today when we look at the trade growth, it is actually coming up below GDP, which is a very unusual situation. It indicates that there's an increased, we know that from historic figures, increased risk of recession, and at best we're losing opportunities for positive impact on growth. Of course, there are good macroeconomic reasons for this, but we also suspect it's hard to get data, but we also suspect that there are a number of measures that are being taken in terms of, in the area of protectionism, probably not so much in tariffs, because that's easy to measure and WTO is following that, but other observers suggest that there's an increased level of support for local industry and some invisible trade barriers coming up, which is a shame, because we know it's not helping growth. But on the positive side, and that would be my contribution here, I think that we have to work on two different levels. First and foremost, and this is also the outcome of the G20 conclusions last year under the Turkish leadership, we should be very focused on implementing what is already agreed. And I think an excellent example of that is the WTO agreement in Bali, which came up with a number of suggestions and actually agreements for how we can remove barriers to trade. And I think it's a little bit disappointing that now things have speeded up in the last half year, but a large number of countries are still not ratified. And these are relatively basic ways of facilitating trade, making sure that customs work well, helping custom authorities to use digital equipment and so on. And I think it's a big opportunity to simply do that and get it implemented in real life. On top of that, we also have to work on finding ways of compensating for the demise of the Doha round. The Doha round was given up on, I think, latest in Nairobi, but we just need to accept that other means forward, ways forward, will have to be sought. And some of these ways forward are, of course, bilateral agreements or regional agreements. And in this respect, our proposal would be that an additional effort is made behind these bilateral agreements, hoping over time to integrate them into global agreements, but very specifically a lot of support is needed now for the TTIP agreement, which is being discussed at the moment. It contains a lot of exciting things compared to some other trade agreements because it's an agreement between two very strong partners, technological leaders in the world. And there's a lot of exciting things that can be done around standards, around protection of consumers, protection and securing of safety of equipment and cars and so on being exported across the world. So we think there are a lot of exciting opportunities, of course, also some obstacles and some challenges at the moment that the governments will hopefully fight successfully, such as protectionism. Thank you. Thank you very much. And moving now to hear from Minister Mohammed, let me simply indicate that now that the ideas have been surfaced this week, what will proceed over the next year or so is a dialogue. We'll be taking this process of what has thus far been an expert dialogue into a dialogue with stakeholders, including but not limited to, distinguish policymakers like we have here. Minister Mohammed. Well, thank you very much. I'll also begin by commending that this initiative. I think it does what we as governments have not been able to do or actually do not have the capacity to do, which is tap into the knowledge and experience of so many experts. And therefore I welcome the publication that you have and say that in fact what it does is it moves the debate that we had in Nairobi and before Nairobi to the first century. A major outcome for us in Nairobi was basically the opening of the door to new issues and for members to take up real commercial initiatives. And I said yesterday that it should not be an initiative that is of a rhetorical nature. It has to be an initiative that is of a non-rhetorical nature and one that would contribute to growth and recovery in the global economy. And I think this is a really good place to start when discussing what you are putting on the table. In Nairobi it's true we did not have a consensus on whether the Doha round should be retained or not. But again, deadlock is never a basis for progress and therefore we need to look into new ways of moving the discussions, the Doha discussions forward and taking up the issues that we actually recognized in the Nairobi ministerial declaration. If you look at paragraph 34, you will see that there are some areas where we agreed that will continue our conversation, even as we agreed that the door is open for these new issues that again are of a real commercial nature. So let me say this, that you asked what would be the two initiatives that we would support in what you are putting forward. One of the ones that I would support wholeheartedly because of just the nature of what we are dealing with on the continent and especially in Kenya would be creation of a working group on digital commerce. I think that would be a wonderful one to start again because of innovations and the entrepreneurial nature of business in my country. It's something that I've talked about before and one that we would like to move forward on. The other one is establish a global value chain partnership. It's something that we have been discussing even at the WTO, whether we made much progress before or not, but something that we've been discussing. And obviously for us in terms of trade investment that is one area where we are very keenly interested. Why? Again because we've been left out, our SMEs have not been part of the discussion and would like to have them get involved in the discussion. Now as policy makers I agree with what you've said that we should all be concerned about the state of the global economy. We've listened to all the assessments that are out there by world-class economies and as governments we have our own assessments as well. And we all know that markets at the start of this year were both unstable and turbulent and we had many people say that we need to take stock of that. In fact Larry Summers, the words were we must heed the market. And I think that's a very important point to take into consideration as we move forward. But I'd really like to commend this initiative and to say that in fact it's probably the gap that we need to fill between what we've been doing at WTO, what we've been doing at the regional level in our regions, whether it is the regions within Africa or outside Africa and the value addition that experts and the private sector brings to the table. And again at the core of all this, as we indicated yesterday, we have to make sure that the private sector indicates what direction we should be taking as we negotiate and discuss these issues going forward. Thank you very much for your comments. Now in moving to invite Minister Freeland to offer her views, I just want to note that the initiative had a steering committee, it has a steering committee. In addition to Mr. Anderson, we have a prominent Canadian who has been in the steering committee from the very beginning, Ambassador of Canada to the WTO Jonathan Freed. Over to you Minister Freeland. Yes, some of our ambassadors write novels that are made into brilliant movies and some of our ambassadors are on very important steering committees. Thank you very much. It's great to be here. I just wanted to start by echoing some of the remarks already. In particular, I think it was Nielsen pointed out that right now the growth in global trade is lagging the growth in global GDP. That's a real problem because the growth in global GDP is not adequate. If there was a single issue that we should all be wrestling with here this week, it is that GDP growth is not enough in the world. We can all contribute to that. Trade is a really important lever there. Certainly, we had a Canadian lunch earlier today. One of the things that my Canadian business stakeholder said, looking with some intent and ferocity at me, is that exports are going to be how Canada moves its economy forward. We have a lot of work to do and the work we're doing is really important. You pointed out very kindly, Richard, John Freed's big contribution to this. I'm proud that there's a maple leaf here on this report. This is an initiative that started in 2011 and was supported by previous Canadian governments. We strongly support it. That's because, as Amina said, and I do also really want to underscore the tremendous work she did in Nairobi. That was a Herculean marathon, but worse than a marathon, ultra-marathon effort. There were some really concrete and meaningful outcomes, probably not as much as anyone hoped, but a lot better than people feared. The bicycle of the WTO may be wobbled a bit, but it kept on going, and I think that's really important. A conclusion that I think we all left Nairobi with, apart from the need for sleep, was that trade, yes, it is very technical. It is the domain of extremely well-versed experts. The first is the domain of our brilliant WTO ambassadors, but we have to broaden the conversation because there's a reason that we're having problems going forward. I think one of those reasons is it has to be a broader conversation and not just the province of technical experts. This initiative, I think, is a very important contribution to broadening that conversation, that really essential and urgent conversation about trade. And that's why I'm very pleased that Canada was able to support it. Very grateful to John for his hard work. And now I have to say a few words in French. I would like to thank our ambassador. I would also like to thank David Reynolds, who is the president of the Ricardo organization, or our Canadian. Canada-Aversa is a sum of $1 million to help in the framework of the initiative. And this initiative is very important for us. And it's just the beginning of this initiative and we must continue. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, next I'd like to invite Ambassador Froman to offer his thoughts. Thank you, Rick and Ricardo, for having me. I want to reinforce what Chris has said about Amina Muhammad and the absolutely critical role she played in Nairobi in leading that to a successful conclusion. If I had to point to one priority to answer Rick's question, it is the strengthening of the rules-based trading system. It's a system that for seven decades has led to remarkable growth and has helped lead global growth. It's a system that has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. And it's a system that is under a certain amount of strain right now for all sorts of reasons. And as Christian said, trade is now growing slower than global growth. And we need to grow faster so it can help drive global growth as well. And so in a way that is sustainable and inclusive as well and where the benefits are broadly shared. I think coming out of Nairobi, I think it's important, we really are at a very important moment. Nairobi achieved a number of important things. We made progress on ratification of trade facilitation. As many countries came forward with their ratification instruments. We reached agreement on the information technology agreement expansion, which covers $1.3 trillion of trade by some estimates, about 10% of global trade eliminating tariffs. We reached agreement on an important package on agricultural export subsidies that was very relevant to the development agenda of the WTO. And as Amina said, we opened the door there to start thinking about new approaches to outstanding issues, new issues potentially to put on the agenda, and new processes and flexible ways of addressing those issues. And in that regard, I think this report is well timed. It's potentially a very important contribution to the conversation that will now have in Geneva, in capitals, among ministers here in Davos as well. And I think it's important not just because of the substantive issues that it addressed, but also because it recognized that the issues of the multilateral trading system aren't just for government officials and trade ministers to discuss, but it's important to bring in a wide range of stakeholders, business, labor, NGOs, and others, academics, and to have a wide range of perspectives on what direction we should take that multilateral trading system in the future. So I want to congratulate Ricardo and Rick for this report and the people who worked on this report. And we certainly look forward to that ongoing conversation about the future of the multilateral trading system and this report's contribution to that conversation. Thanks very much. Finally, Ricardo. Well, thank you very much, Rick. And I should say I'm delighted really to be here, delighted to release this report after at least three years of really hard work from those who should have the credit, the 400 or so experts that really put their time, their energy, contributed their ideas to what we're putting out. But I'm also delighted really and I would like to thank the panelists to hear that we're coming out exactly at that right time. We're coming out with a series of proposals that are very concrete. I'd like to make the emphasis, for instance, on those that have to do really with that international agenda for cooperation that governments have now decided to pursue in the next 10 years the Sustainable Development Goals, the Agenda 2030 to Eliminate Poverty and obviously the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The report itself is all in a very big way about this from the very concrete proposals on how to help LDCs and poorest countries to restructure their economies to bring about sustainability to issues related to oceans and fisheries and destructive industries a sector that has been very much forgotten and its contribution to sustainability and to the global economy, issues related to industrial policy, to investment to the digital economy, to the serviceification of economies and of industry, those all necessary in the pursuit of low carbon or neutralized carbon economies as Friedman was saying a couple of days back here carbon has become a frenemy of the global economy in a way and what we're doing here is really finding the proposals that would bring balance through the trade system and investment system to tackle those issues. So to give you an example, for instance, on subsidies we have really taken a very close look with really foremost experts in the world to the way in which subsidies rules have been built all over the trade system and have been trying to come up then with ideas that would clarify how to create safe harbors for subsidies to address market failures so that governments can be sure that when you need to generate public goods or when you need to really tackle those externalities that really cause unsustainability, you can do so through the trade regime. So again, many of the issues that you have put on the table including not least re-invigorating the role of the WTO within the current complex landscape of the global trade and investment system are issues that you would find in the report. So again, thank you very much and I should recognize your partnership in this and the World Economic Forum break as well. So now let's open it up and before I do just want to officially thank the Government of Canada, the Government of Switzerland for providing specific support for the E-15. Both of our institutions have institutionally supported this as well. So let's open it up for questions. Please identify your name and your affiliation when we do so, sir. Sorry, David Boeckingspiegel online, Germany. I have one question for Mr. Froman. As you know there's considerable resistance against TTIP in Germany. We recently saw 150,000 people marching against it in Berlin. How much are you worried about this and do you still expect against this background to have some kind of agreement until the end of the year? And then there's also a question I would like to ask the whole panel. With the refugee crisis right now, we see an increasing tendency to close borders to make transfer within Europe more difficult. Are you also worried that this might affect trade in the medium term? Well, to answer your first question, we are engaged in very good and constructive discussions with the European Commission on TTIP. Those conversations have, I think the progress has actually accelerated over the last several months and we're continuing to work through a number of issues. I think one of the most important things is that, and I commend Commissioner Malstrom because I think she's been doing a terrific job of traveling around the European Union and talking about what TTIP is and what TTIP isn't to address some of the misinformation or mythologies that are out there that is reflected in some of the opposition. Trade issues are always difficult and they're always controversial. We recognize that and I think we need to make sure we're having an ongoing conversation with civil society, with the public about what it is that we are trying to achieve here, which to be clear is to take two well-regulated, advanced industrialized countries, high-wage countries, and see who already have a very deep and broad trade and investment relationship and see if we can take common-sense steps to further that relationship for their joint competitiveness and also to work together vis-a-vis the rest of the global economy as well. Neither of us on either side of the Atlantic have any interest in lowering our standards, reducing the level of regulatory protection, whether it's in health, safety, or the environment, and we need to make absolutely clear to our publics that that's the case. Actually, because of the limitations of time, let's just take the first question and if we have time we'll come back to the second going forward. Right here on the front. So relating to China, TPP, I think many in U.S. has been very hopeful around the Asia Pacific, actually, but it seems on the Congress level it suffers from the approval. Recently the WTO system have seen some renewed sign of progress, but on bilateral investment treaty between China and U.S. it has not proceed as some of the business community in U.S. have hoped. So how do you manage this kind of, not say rivalry situation, but cooperation situation between China and U.S. on the trade front? What's your media organization? Well, we have obviously an ongoing dialogue with China on a broad range of trade investment issues, bilaterally through mechanisms like the Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade that we work on with the Department of Commerce, we co-chair with the Department of Commerce and ourselves, or the Strategic and Economic Dialogue. Our presidents meet on a regular basis. We have a lot of interaction to work through our various bilateral issues. We are continuing our negotiations of the Bilateral Investment Treaty and actually I think we have made quite good progress over the course of the last year and a half on that. We will go to reach a high standard agreement and that will be important because it really represents an opportunity to help support China in its efforts to reform its economy and to move to a system in which rather than everything being prohibited and less explicitly permitted to one where everything is permitted and less explicitly prohibited and that's a good way of liberalizing trade and investment and spurring on services development, spurring on a domestic demand-led consumer-led economy. Thanks. We'll progress across the room and I appreciate the quick and crisp questions. Please, the gentleman in the middle, and we'll come to you, sir, and the back next. Over to you. This gentleman here. And then you next. A question for Ambassador Froman. There are other people on the panel, too. Exactly. The I&T tip is for the investment and one of the suggestions is to consolidate 3,200 investment agreements. Given the tricky negotiations in T-TIP on this issue, whatever makes you think that it's possible to consolidate 3,200 investment agreements into some sort of a standardization? That's more of a question I think for the E-15. I don't think Ambassador Froman himself is proposing to consolidate 3,200 investment agreements. Let me just say very quickly about that. If you look at the report, you'll see a tiered series of suggestions. The fundamental starting point for the suggestions is to start with a conversation about a model 21st century style investment agreement, building on and taking as input some of the more recently negotiated bilateral or multi-lateral or plural-lateral investment agreements, as well as UNCTAD has run a process over the last couple of years with a very interesting formulation about what should be the principles. That has opened up, I think, a wider conversation about the various responsibilities of parties, not just the government obligations and investment agreement. We are suggesting in the E-15 that these are good starting points, some of the late, bilaterally negotiated agreements and this UNCTAD framework for a wider conversation about both setting a set of principles and then drawing best practice from what exists into a model framework that then can be adopted by parties as they wish and over time, if that process has gotten right, it will have an explanatory power, a demonstrative effect, if you will, beginning to cohere the system and have people adapt their existing investment agreements to this model agreement. There's a lot more to it than that, but just in the interest of time, try to respond to your question, that gives you the crux of it and happy to talk offline about it. Sir, in the back. I apologize in advance because this question is also addressed to Mr. Fromeo. I'm also interested in any other participants' opinions on whether China should be granted market economy status within the WTO. Well, this is an issue that obviously all countries need to look at in the context of China's accession agreement. We've made no decisions ourselves internally and I know other countries and other trading partners are also looking at that issue. We have our own statutory guidelines for what constitutes market economy and we're in the process of looking at those issues as we speak. Okay, perhaps the last question over here. Sorota with International Business Times. This is to Ambassador Froman, but also to Ms. Freeland as well. Given this report's discussion of climate change and the importance of climate change, why was climate change not mentioned at all in the TPP? And what do you say to those who are concerned about the Trans-Canada lawsuit? Those who say that that represents an effort to use trade deals to undermine an effort to fight climate change? Well, first, I don't think anybody would question the Obama Administration's commitment to and leadership on climate change issues and our view is that the UN F-chip will see was the appropriate forum for that, not a trade agreement. With regard to the recent press release suggesting that there might be a case in this area, obviously no case has been filed yet and it's hard to comment on it. I would simply say that we are completely confident that all of our actions are consistent with our international obligations, including those under NAFTA. Yes, room. No, afterwards, a little Fuji one. Okay. I'll say a quick... Okay, I'll say a quick climate change thing and then I did want to comment very much on the refugee point. You know, look, we're a new government. We were sworn into office on November 4th. What you heard from our prime minister earlier this week is that climate change, and you saw it in the Canadian position at Paris, is climate change is a fundamental part of the economic strategy and the international strategy. That's why our environment minister is here as part of the Team Canada of this new government. But we think it's the right thing to do for the planet. We also think it's the right thing to do for the Canadian economy because we think that going forward, the clean tech space is going to be a space where we see a lot of development. And I would also say, underscoring what Ambassador Froman said, we are building very strongly right now on our NAFTA partnership to put forward some very strong North American positions on climate change, on the environment. And you'll have things to say about that before too long. On the refugee point, I think that's a really important point. And it's why when our prime minister spoke earlier this week, he talked a lot about diversity and its importance. I think societies that are internally driven are going to be societies that find it hard to embrace their participation in the world economy and in the world. Every country has its own issues with the refugee crisis right now. But I will say, echoing my prime minister, he talked about how leadership is really important on this file. We had in the fall a, you know, we had in the fall a government that introduced a barbaric cultural practices hotline that you could call if you felt that your neighbors were indulging in barbaric cultural practices. That's not a very inclusive society. We have now said we're going to take 25,000 refugees to Canada. We are working very hard and very fast towards that target. We have people who we are going to refugee camps and flying to our country. And the good news, and I would say this is really good news for Europe, Canadians are really excited about it. Canadians are really embracing this. I think that people want to be good. People want to have a good relationship with their neighbors. People want to contribute to solving international crises. And I think leadership is really, really important here. I don't know whether there's anything to add after what you've said. But let me just say this, that it's new for Europe. It's not new for the rest of the world. We've been having inflows of refugees for a very, very long time. We have refugees that have been in our countries for over 20 years. And it hasn't made us much more inward-looking. In fact, it has opened up our societies to accepting diversity and to enjoying diversity and to building on diversity. So the only thing I'd say is that, look, I hope it doesn't need protectionism. I hope it actually underlines the urgent need for economic growth. I think it's only when societies become stagnant and do not grow as fast as they have been growing for a while that they begin to look inward and close others out. What you've just said about hotline for barbaric behavior or culture. To my mind, I think, in fact, the refugees are good for Europe. Maybe that mindset will change. Maybe it will shift so that you start looking at other people in the same way that you look at yourselves. I don't think there are any barbaric cultures. I think they're just diverse cultures and they're all beautiful. Thank you very much on that human note. Let me end the press conference thanking our panelists very much for their kind words and participation. Thank you, ICTSD, for the good partnership with the forum. And thanks to those of you who have attended today and are interested in the topic. Have a good afternoon.