 Good morning, good afternoon to all. Dear participants, it is my great pleasure and honor to welcome you warmly to today's webinar, the impacts of COVID-19 on fisheries and aquaculture in Europe and Central Asia. My name is Haydar Persso. I am a senior fishery and aquaculture officer in the four regional office for Europe and Central Asia. I am very happy to moderate today's webinar. The key objectives of this webinar are as follows. Examine impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on fisheries and aquaculture industries and food security in the region. Provide an overview of government responses to the pandemic to support the sector. Share good practices regarding industry and civil society responses to the pandemic and explore the sector's needs to mitigate immediate impacts of the pandemic and improve resilience in the longer term. Dear participants, let me share some technical information on the arrangement for this webinar. First, I would like to say something about a language option. This webinar is being conducted in two languages named English and Russian. Then we have an interpretation service. We can just switch language by clicking on the small globe icon at the bottom. I also would like to highlight that this webinar is being recorded and broadcasted on YouTube. We are expecting your questions and comments in writing. I think this is an important point. Please, for this, use the questions and answer box at the bottom of your screen for sharing your questions. Please, do not use the chat for this proposal. However, a short biography of the key speakers will be appeared in the chat box. I would like to highlight that this webinar targets government official, private sector representatives, civil society participants, research institutes, academia, direct or indirect link up to the sector officials, and a culture in Europe and Central Asia. About 300 feet of people have registered for this webinar. Let me invite Orymon Fihle, regional program leader to open the webinar. Orymon, the floor is yours, please. Thank you very much, Haider. Good morning, dear colleagues, dear friends. Also, good afternoon, depending on where you are. Of course, in the region, distinguished speakers, panelists and participants, it's really an honor to welcome you to the regional webinar on the impact of fisheries and aquaculture or on the impact of COVID on the fisheries and aquaculture sector in Europe and Central Asia. Let me also welcome our colleagues from the fisheries division, Mr. Marcio Castro de Sosa, senior fisheries officer and his team, who has really worked also closely with our regional office to prepare this webinar session. On the 11th March 2020, so in fact, just one day more than a year ago, WHO has declared COVID-19 a pandemic pointing to over 180,000 cases of the coronavirus illness in over 110 countries and territories around the world. Now, one year later, we have in total 116 million cases confirmed globally and there are very few countries where the pandemic has not had any serious effects. So, as we all experienced, really the pandemic COVID-19 has significantly impacted the global economy, global value chains and we are really disrupted with lockdown measures due to the virus in many parts of our daily life. The simple fact that we're going to have this seminar also today is related to the fact that the COVID has really moved us to much, much more teleworking. So, the pandemic has really hit almost all industries and sectors with long-term implications, including the fisheries and also the aquaculture sector. Fish and fish products, as I think many of you know, currently constitute the most highly traded food commodity internationally, with 221 states and territories having some fish trading activity. So, fish exports for human consumption in value terms are higher than the exports of all other animal proteins combined. More than one third of the world population is relying mainly on fish as a substantial part of the animal protein. In some of the African and some of the Asian countries, fish really provides more than half of their animal protein and our considered staple food. So, fish is a key element of our food security and sustainable management of fish and aquaculture resources is instrumental in order to achieve the sustainable development goals. We are not even any more 10 years ahead to achieve the agenda 2030. So, therefore, we really need to act on all fronts now. And the impact of COVID-19 on the fish supply chain and operations have been still a profound. If we're looking into countries of the region, they have experienced varying degrees of impact of the COVID-19 based up on the various responses at the country and at the local level. So, I'm really pleased to see that with the experts we have on this panel today, we will further explore these questions and I'm looking really forward to the discussion and sharing this information. So, the webinar today will continue the webinar series that we have started at the beginning of the pandemic last year really aiming at facilitating multistakeholder dialogue on the impact of the COVID-19 on the food systems and the webinars are creating a platform for sharing experience from the government, the civil society, the private sector on the challenges, the measures and the opportunities for fisheries and aquaculture in light of the COVID-19 crisis. So, I'm looking forward for the discussion. I thank you for your attention and participation and please stay safe and healthy. Over to you, Haider. Thank you. Thank you very much for your opening remarks also for a great contribution to this event. Dear friends, now we are passing to the technical sessions. We will have the basic technical session. The first one titled the global scenario of fisheries and aquaculture and COVID-19 will explore how COVID-19 pandemic has affected the international trade patterns of the fisheries and aquaculture, trade patterns of fisheries and aquaculture products in our region and this issue will be addressed by my colleague, Marcio Castro, who is the Senior Fisherer Officer of FO and also now he is acting as the team leader in the FO Fisheries Division for International Trade and Markets of Fisheries and Aquaculture Products. Then we will get a presentation which will only outline the current situation of this pandemic condition in our region in Europe. I'm sorry, this will be a case study focusing on the Asia and Pacific. I think this will be very valuable to this event and by bringing some case studies from the other region. I believe that the response to the pandemic has varied greatly by the countries and by the region. So it's my pleasure now to invite Marcio for his presentation. Marcio, please. Thank you, Haida. Good morning to all. We have a good day if you are outside Europe. First of all, I'd like to thank Haida and the Regional Office and Raymond for organizing this event. We put, as Raymond mentioned, the importance of fisheries and aquaculture products in terms of word, in terms of word production, in terms of the dimension of income contribution and food security is a normals. So it's and also the effects that we've seen, as Haida just mentioned, they are very differentiated around the globe. My idea here with my presentation is going to be more or less to bring initial global overview to be able to set a stage for the other speakers so that we are going to focus more on the region. So I'm going to explain a little bit what are the main characteristics of fish production and trade that has somehow driven the sector, has somehow driven the sector to this point that we are in terms of challenges and opportunities associated with COVID-19. First of all, I think it's quite important that in order for us to have a true analysis of the fishery sector, we have to be very, to pay a lot of attention in the nuances of the sector because the sector is completely different from the other sectors in terms of animal protein. So we are talking about a sector that has some very unique differences and we are going to explore those unique differences during my presentation. And in addition to that, we also have to see that of course we had most of the countries, I would say all countries, faced serious problems with the pandemic. I'm not talking about the health issues but also in the economic side associated with the production of not only fish but food in general. But at the same time, we have to pay a lot of attention in the opportunities that have appeared with this pandemic. Due to the pandemic, new ways of selling the product, new ways of distributing the product as they have been found, they have been explored. So the idea of this webinar is also not only look at the problems but also look at the new opportunities that have appeared during the pandemic. As I mentioned, the sector of fisheries and aquaculture, so the sector of fisheries at large, it's already very different from the other animal proteins starting from the type of production. Because if you go for poultry, for cattle, you only have poultry, you only have cattle. In our case, we start already with two types of production, the aquaculture and the capture fisheries. And they are completely different in terms of their nature. They are completely different in terms of the inputs they use, the costs associated with the production, the intensity of the user of human labor, the intensity of user of capital. So it's already a very big difference since the beginning. In addition to that, we also have a wide range of type of producers. We have industrial producers, we have small-scale producers, and we have a significant participation of women in the fish production. So, I mean in the fish value chain. So this is very important that indeed, small-scale fishers is very, very important at a global level in terms of fish production. So we are already setting a very different scenario with multiple angles that exactly those multiplicity of angles, they were considered exactly the turning point for not having only problems associated with the pandemic. Those differentiation between type of production, type of producers, and other aspects that we are going to see, they have been associated also with being able to create opportunities for the participants of the value chain. And when I mentioned aquaculture and white capture fisheries, it's important to have this global idea because, again, just to reiterate that, here I'm presenting only the global perspective. So the idea of the webinar is exactly trying to start with the global perspective and then trying to narrow down. And in the global perspective, and it's very important in the last years to know the importance that aquaculture is playing in fish production. The aquaculture here is the blue area here in this graph. So in the last years aquaculture is growing considerably at a much higher rate of growth than white capture fisheries. This is also a very important aspect in terms of how the sector behave in terms of any challenges or any opportunities like the pandemic. Just to present some numbers, some most recent numbers that we have here from FAO. You can see here that exactly the capture fisheries, it has grown only 3.7% in comparison with aquaculture that is almost reaching the same level of white capture fisheries. So this is very important. Nowadays, we produce more aquaculture products than white capture fisheries in general because we have a lot of aquaculture products that are direct to feed other animals. But if we think about only human consumption, we are very close to reach a level that aquaculture is going to surpass white capture fisheries. So this is very, very important in terms of how the sector is behaving. In addition to that, we also have some very significant numbers in terms of first sale. So the first sale of fish products in general is 400 billion US dollars. And aquaculture plays a very important, a very significant role in that regard. I mentioned in the beginning the importance of the social inclusion, the income distribution and nutrition aspects. So just to illustrate a little bit the importance of fish production in terms of the human angle. And if we think, we see that there is a lot of people engaged in fish production worldwide. In particularly, we have a huge concentration of fish workers in Asia. And furthermore, we have a huge participation as a mention of women in the value chain. If you look at the value chain, more than 50% of workers are women. And they are more concentrated exactly in the processing phase of fish and aquaculture products. In addition to that, the small scale, we all know how small scale in general is important in every single country, small scale fishers. Some countries they call them artisanal, some countries call them small scale. But this particular group is very, very important in terms of the share of the global employment towards fisheries and aquaculture. And in addition to that, the problems and solutions that happen with the pandemic is also very associated with the long characteristic of the value chain for fisheries and aquaculture products. Fisheries and aquaculture products, they have a very long value chain. Sometimes a fish is produced in one country, exported to another to be processed and re-exported to a third one to be consumed. So we have a very long value chain in terms of fish production and trade. In addition to that, fisheries and aquaculture products, they are very inclusive in terms of international trade. Because when you talk about cattle, when you talk about poultry, countries can be self-sufficient. Many countries are self-sufficient in poultry production. But for fish, it's almost impossible due to the diversity of species. We have a huge diversity of species. So even big producing countries, they have three important species that they do not produce. So this map is from Hubble Bank. It's not an FAO map. It's from the Dutch bank. And this map shows exactly how important at the global level seafood trade is. We see the participation of many countries exporting and at the same time importing. So this was also related to all the effects that we had during the pandemic. And one important aspect associated directly with the international trade is when you think about the export value of the main animal proteins in the world, we see that fish represents 56% of all exports of animal proteins in value terms in the world. So we are talking about 18% for cattle, 14% for corn, 12% for poultry, and 56% for fish. So if you add all other animal proteins in terms of export value, it is still lower than fish. So the sector is highly dependent on international trade. And in addition to that, I mentioned that fish usually has a very long value chain. We have the production that can come up from white capture or aquaculture. We have processing distribution. We have processing transportation, sorry. We have distribution and then consumption and export. So I mentioned international trade is a huge share in terms of the fish market. So after the export, we are going to have again sometimes processing and transportation, distribution, and consumption. So the value chain is really long. It's a long value chain. And in addition to that, during the distribution phase, regardless if it's a domestic level or exported to another country, there is a huge market for specific species in terms of the hotel, restaurants, and catering, what we call the Horeca sector. And that was at this sector faced a lot of changes during the pandemic. We all know that many restaurants, they have been particularly closed at the beginning of the pandemic, including hotels, the sector of tourism has been reduced almost to zero with a huge impact on this distribution to the hotels, catering, and restaurants. And in many occasions, consumers were able to buy different species that they never saw that species in the supermarket for the first time at an affordable price, because there were no market for those high value species in supermarkets, in hotels, and catering services. So this was also one of the aspects of the changes that we had in terms of the pandemic in the markets. In addition to that, I think it's important to realize that if we try to summarize what I have just said, we have two types of production, aquaculture and white cat, that was already an impact, that caused a different impact. Developing countries, they participate a lot. Oh, sorry, I think there is a keeps moving. Sorry for that. Developing countries participate a lot. International trade is very important, a long value chain, and we have small scale and the gender inclusion. So those are the main characteristics of the sector. And in addition to that, what we have in terms of the major trends that are occurring right now in the market. For some products, we did have some shortening of the value chain. So we did have some shortening of the value chain. There are some trying to reduce the logistic impacts. But at the same time, we are seeing now consumers trying to know the product more. They want more information about the product in terms of what the product looked like, where the fish was bought, what are the fishermen involved. The business has grown during this pandemic. And information is every time fundamental. And I want to stress that information is key. Hero fish is here. Info fish is here. FAO is here. We have to get information as much as possible. Information is key for us to re-adapt ourselves to challenges and opportunities. And we have to be aware of market information of the instruments that we have here. For example, those are some of the FAO instruments, also available in Russian. And in addition to that, we would like to reiterate that FAO has a specific project called Glove Fish that we work very close with Eurofish and Infofish to disseminate market information on prices, on border rejections, on markets. And that's fundamental as a measure. Information is fundamental to reposition ourselves for any challenge. I would like to thank you all again. And back to you, Haider. Thank you. Marcio, thank you very much for your presentation. For the sake of time now, immediately I would like to pass to the second presentation, which will be delivered by Ms. Shirlan Maria Anton Sami, Info Fish Management Director. As I stated, this talk will be focusing on the mitigation, adaptation measures, and other good practices from cases from Asia and Pacific. Shirlan, please, it's your turn. Thank you, Haider. Hello everyone. It's really nice to be here. And just let me just quickly share my screen. Okay. Yeah. So let me first thank FAO, also the Regional Office for Central Asia and Europe for inviting Info Fish to be part of this very, very important webinar and timely one as well. COVID-19 has part of our lives now, since over a year. And it's really something that is being heard and talked about almost every day. There is some occasion to talk about the impact of COVID or how it's changing our lives every day. So my presentation will talk a little bit about what's happening or what happened over the past year in Asia and the Pacific region. What are the mitigation and adaptation measures that took place and continues to take place? And some of the other good practices, examples from the Asia-Pacific region. Now, in spite of the profound impact that it has had on the fishery and seafood sector in the Asia-Pacific region, we want to be optimistic about the situation as much as possible. And we'd like to also present what are the positive trends and opportunities that have come from this region. And I'd like to highlight here the key points that we've been hearing since the start of this event is food security, source of protein, and challenges and opportunities. So just to give you a quick recap of what happened from early last year. The whole situation started from the disruption of trade, seafood trade began from China when the border started closing down. Many of the suppliers to this market were affected, particularly those who single-handedly or single-targeted China as a sole market. They were the ones who were pretty much affected quite badly at that time. And then, of course, when the pandemic became a pandemic, all the countries began, most countries started closing their borders and we started to see disruption in seafood value chain, distribution channels were affected, retail channels were blocked, and then we were having problems getting supplies from the wet markets to the consumers. The retail sector, as Marshal mentioned just now, was the most severely affected. And of course, we started seeing changes in price, seafood prices, declines and so on. Against this backdrop, what happened was, of course, consumers were not getting their product and processors, wholesalers, producers were practically trying to get this product that stuck with them to the consumers. Now, in this process, what happened was they started looking at innovative ways to how should I get my product. So this is where we started seeing a rise in usage of online platforms to get the product to the consumer. So there was a significant increase starting to take place in terms of using these online platforms to sell the products. And of course, initially, we had that hiccup in trying to get the product, but then eventually, when this platform appeared and it became something which was very much facilitating, this started increasing. So we started seeing breakfast, shoppy, lasada, tea, all being channels to sell the seafood to the consumer. This included not only fresh frozen, but also processed and ready to serve canned seafood. Just to give you a quick view of the types of delivery that's available in Asia. You also have some which are Asian based and also delivery, which is European based, which are also now doing pretty well in some of the countries in Asia Pacific region. So Foodpenda and Grabfood are some of the most popular ones in this region. And then of course, you also have institutional retailers, supermarkets, hypermarkets, who are also creating their own platforms to have the food delivered to the consumer. This includes, it gives you an option for the consumer to either just purchase it online and have it delivered to the house, or you can have the option to have a personal shopper to do the shopping for you. And then you can pick it up at a designated time and location, or have the personal shopper deliver it to your house. So these are some of the convenience or rather the options that these institutional retailers and other players along the value chain were using. Now in addition to that, we will also see producers, processors and wholesalers, traders themselves who started creating their online platforms to have their options directly delivering the product to the consumer. So this is where you saw the drop in the number of channels or the steps in the whole supply chain. So the number of middlemen in the whole supply chain was being reduced. And in this option, producers, wholesalers and processors were able to give more options to the consumer. And if you see some of the, some of the options that were available are even different type of fish cuts. For example, in addition to fresh or frozen option, consumers were able to choose whether they want the fish whole or whether they want the fish in portions or states or in filet. Also, options for them to choose kits meal, something that is suitable different cuts for to cater for children as well as for the elderly. So now what I would like to highlight here also is the fact that in generally in Asia, we eat fish whole and fresh. So now with this pandemic, we had to, we've seen a shift in the way consumers are looking for seafood. We are starting to see an increase in the number of sales of frozen fish and frozen seafood. And this is something which we have, the region has adapted to. It's okay, I need to have, I can go, I can buy frozen fish, I can keep it for long time just because situations have changed. Here, I'd like to quickly show an interesting way of how another way which has been happening in Asia is online marketplace where some of the traders in this retail markets and wholesale markets as well as wet markets are using this way to sell them, promote their seafood and have the delivery of the product. So there are two videos here which I'll quickly show because of time. The first video basically talks about or shows this trader having a set of products, different variety of seafood and a special offer limited for only one minute. So within one minute, you've got to purchase, make the order and you get it at a special price. Now the second video shows you how a retailer at a wet market and frozen market or wet market, sorry, is offering his product, her product at a very special price. And basically it's telling you this is how your product is going to look like and you can make your order through a WhatsApp or a linked app. So I'm just going to quickly show you the first one. And the second one. Y'all never request, we will send it as code like this. Unless you're key down, those that never try before our system, after life, please, before soon, everybody must proceed to the messenger, your Facebook messenger, click on the link, it will lead you to this page. Address everything, we will go by whatever that you're key down. So if you're key wrongly, we will send it to you, the driver send to the wrong unit, we are not responsible. So the last step, select standard delivery, upload your screenshot of payment. Okay, here you must key down box and eyes, because by default we do not provide. If you just request, we will give it to you. Okay, so this option gives you also the way of how you want your product to be delivered, whether you want a box or whether you want eyes or how it's how the preference that you would like to have it done. Now the other way how seafood is really widely being sold in this region these days is using social media, particularly Facebook and even to a certain extent in LinkedIn. Now Facebook in Facebook, we have a myriad of ways on how these traders, retailers are promoting their seafood as live as even frozen and fresh product and giving them special offers to get this seafood to be delivered to them. So it's very interesting and how retailers are competing to find innovative ways to get the fish and seafood to the consumer. And this includes also in the Pacific region. For example, if you look at this picture to the right on the screen is where some fishermen are uploading live videos of the fish freshly caught from the boat and telling them that, okay, this is this fish, this is how much it weighs and this is how much it's going to cost and you can get it from this particular location at this particular price. So these are some of the options that are being available for consumers. Besides, these have been happening a lot in the domestic trade with the lockdowns and restrictions in import and export. There's been a very strong growth in the domestic markets in this region and I think it's quite similar in other regions as well. I'd like to highlight here that the World Trade Organization has recently reviewed the contraction rate of trade, which was initially forecast at between 13 and 32% in 2020. They have now revised the rate to 9.2% for last year and forecast to grow at 7.2% this year. So this is basically because things are starting to improve. They are starting to see the lifting of lockdowns in most of the countries which is facilitating this recovery. As I said, also market diversification is playing a very important role in the growth or development of this sector. Countries, producers are looking for new markets to get the supply since they were badly affected by solely depending on the Chinese market for some of these producers. Also important to mention here that international trading continues to have obstacles as we are attempting to supply and buy from this market simply because of the additional checks and requirements at the borders. So the domestic market plays a very important role particularly also since governments in this region are prioritizing food security. Also just to quickly show some figures here as what you mentioned just now about the growth in the positive growth in the trade. Here you can see the different segment times of 2020, January, May, July and January, December although we do see the contraction there. It has almost come down by half of what it was in the first five months of last year and in some cases you also see some positive growth. Similarly for imports here and just to also add on in addition to producers, you also see the airlines who have been quite badly affected and these are some of the airlines here which I'm mentioning is Thai Airways, Taiwan and Singapore Airlines which serve a big part of their meal menu on the plane has seafood. So they are bringing their creating that ambience in the airlines or the airplane on the in areas in the city itself creating cafeterias that look and feel have the feel like experience in the plane and where seafood is also being served. So just to quickly wrap up I'd like to highlight that the demand in the Asia Pacific region for seafood globally also is very strong. In the Asia Pacific region we have among the countries with the highest for capital fish consumption in the world and we also in the region where some of the countries pay the highest for seafood. So we've been seeing a significant increase in retail grocery sales and takeout as well. This is actually going to keep growing for the time being we are in this era of online seafood trading where the industry is looking for ways to how to survive. Just to also mention that in some countries in the region they're also looking at how to produce their own food. This is an example in the Philippines where the Bureau of Fisheries has embarked on empowering communities to produce their own food using aquaponics and this is something which consumers that can also do it in their own backyard. Just a final slide. As we see this growth this tremendous growth in the way seafood is being sold and how this digital world is taking this whole industry by storm. The question is will this bubble burst, is this growth going to burst? We really don't have much data as in how much seafood is sold online, how much is consumed through food delivery but definitely it's pretty obvious that this is really strong. 50% of the world population is on social media. So this is something that's very it's a food for thought and industry should be focusing on this industry and technology, innovation and technology which is going to characterize the growth of this sector from now on and we really got to be mindful of what consumers want cater to the consumers better, longer shelf life and variety is going to be what we are looking for. Thank you. I essentially thank you for this very useful and informative presentation. I would like to encourage the participants that I am to make remarks or put their questions to the questions and answer box. Now we are entering again the other session which is major impacts of COVID-19 on fishers and aquaculture water change in Europe and Central Asia counter wrong table. As highlighted by Marcia, the fisheries and the water chain of the fisheries and aquaculture products are very long. So in this session we would like to see the impacts of the pandemic on the specific component of this long water chain. Under this session we will look for countries as case countries from our region, two of them from the Central Asia and the others from the Europe. I now invite my colleague Marcia to facilitate the session. Marcia, it's your turn please. We are going now to have a presentation of Eurofish talking about the impact of COVID-19 in the fishery sector in Europe. As I mentioned before, Eurofish is part of the InfoFish network and in FAO we work very closely with them in terms of project development, particularly involving markets, market opportunities, trade. So Katarina, please you have the floor. Thank you very much. Marcia, good morning to everybody. So it's a great pleasure for me to be here and thank, I want to thank on behalf of Eurofish the entire team of the FAO for organization of this important webinar. I will switch now to my presentation. My presentation will be focused on the effects of coronavirus on fishery sector in some selected countries. It will be examples of how the government, industry and civil society respond to the impacts of coronavirus. In general, no matter if you consider local, national or international levels, seafood supply chain in each country are very highly integrated into the overall seafood supply chain. Therefore, the consequences of how each country reacts to the effects of the pandemic. These effects have global consequences for the seafood industry as a whole. In general, the sector is subject to direct and indirect impacts through reduced functions of the fishing fleet, impacts on the processing sector, fish farming companies, fish trade. We see the changed culture of consumers, we see the impacts on the employment, impacts on the food security, policy implications and so on and so on. But here I would like to show you some examples of disruptions in the selected countries and how the government or industry reacted for certain specific parts of the value chain. The United Kingdom. As in many other nations, the UK economy was seriously disrupted during the COVID. There was an early disruption in the seafood processing industry on the supply chain as the COVID outbreak affected seafood processing companies. According to Seafish, up to 75 to 80 percent of the seafood processing plants had to either reduce the processing operations or even completely close during the first half of 2020. The remaining 20 to 25 percent of the seafood processing plants continued either at normal levels or even increased the levels of operation. And usually those businesses included small workplaces or family businesses. But anyway, all the processing companies had to go through significantly reconfiguration in order to be able to adjust to COVID free operations. There was a major collapse in the food service sector due to the several cycles of lockdowns and the second quarter of 2020 was the hardest for the UK food service, where there was noted a 70 cent percent of reduction in visits during that quarter. This reduction in visits in the Horeca sector were partly compensated by the increased retail sales. And these retail sales were focused on the growth and innovation of the products, which was done by both multiple retailers, fish wholesale companies and fish fishmongers. In July, the chancellor of the ex-checker, Rishi Sunak, announced the government scheme Eat Out to Help Out. The scheme was implemented to encourage people to get back to the restaurants, cafes and pubs and to improve the UK's economy. And in particular, this initiative meant that from Monday to Wednesday during August, the government had paid half of the cost of the meal up to 10 pounds per person. So activities at the restaurants were slightly improved, but yet they remained at 42 per cent below 2019 level during the third quarter of the last year. The impact of COVID in the retail was more variable. According to C-Fish, we can see on the graph that, before the first lockdown, retail sales increased quite substantially. Canned and frozen seafood products increased around 120 per cent and 75 per cent respectively compared to 2019 volumes. The effect on fresh and chilled fish was much lower, however, with a spike of around 20 per cent. And after lockdown, the sales of fresh seafood fell again below 2019 level for a few weeks, but then we can see an increase again. So there is a growing trend not only in fish products, but in all fresh food products, direct marketing. This is the concept of a box where consumers are encouraged to subscribe to irregular delivery. And here on the slide, we can see an example of a fish box company located in Scotland. The Russian Federation. Here I want to focus on a significant disruption in the expert value, expert flows. Russia is among top fishing nations in the world and its expert of fish in 2019 exceeded 1.7 million tonnes. And you remember the slide, which Marcel showed you about the unique position of fish in the global trade. Also in Russia, expert of fish is much higher than the expert of poultry and meat, six times higher. So this is a huge figure. But the particular situation for Russia is that China is by far the biggest market. It accounts for 60 per cent of the Russian fisheries expert. But Russian fish supply to China was complicated after coronavirus was detected in frozen fish samples. And the Chinese authorities have introduced a mandatory disinfection of fish products and packaging for fish. But technically, it was very challenging to implement those measures. So unloading delays began already in November of the last year. And serious disruption began in January 2021, when a new season of Alaska Pollock harvesting started in the Sea of Ahotsk. And regarding the volumes here, we speak about annual catch of 1.2 million tonnes. So basically, the fish is, the experts have been delayed or completely stopped. And there is a big question how to proceed further and how to redirect these big volumes of Alaska Pollock. So new expert markets have been chosen as a part of the expert has been redirected to Vietnam, South Korea, Thailand and other countries. But of course, this is not enough. Then production of Alaska Pollock fillet and minced meat were destined for European markets and the USA. So what is the reaction of the Russian authorities? There is a high focus on the domestic market. So first of all, this is reorientation of the fish volumes to the northern and central districts of Russia. Then extra measures are, these extra measures is the proposal of the all Russia Association of Fishery Industry to organize fish interventions to stimulate demand from budgetary institutions, in particular education, health care and army. And this is estimated to be up to 700,000 tonnes. And in the meanwhile, we notice a decrease of the retail prices. There are several retail chains reported price drops for Alaska Pollock by 28 to 37% in January 2021 compared to the previous year. In the aquaculture sector, which has a rather long production cycle, we don't see so drastic or significant influence of COVID-19 on the production volume. Also, of course, some companies experience difficulties. Some of them had to switch to the isolation mode to decrease and limit all the external contacts. So all in all, with the gradual cancellation of the restrictions, the demand for fish products started to grow again. But still, if we compare it to the 2019 figures, there is still a gap of 20%. Turkey. So this is a very interesting and a very bright case to show you how the government responded to the current situation and organized measures for the population. So the exporter-oriented Turkish aquaculture sector was directly influenced by the development in the foreign markets. And, of course, demand for fish, especially fresh and chilled fish, was down and it was combined with the restrictions, logistical issues in the export market, difficulties, availability of trucks, drivers, and so on and so on. So demand for fresh and chilled fish was down. But the demand for frozen whole fish and frozen fish fillets was up by 50% in the European market. So consequently, these boosted sales of frozen products. A very interesting measure was a special campaign for a healthy diet against the coronavirus. This campaign was ordered by the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, Bekir Pagdemirli. It was carried out under coordination of the general directorate of fisheries and aquaculture of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Turkey. The main target of the campaign was to ensure a healthy diet and increase fish consumption in the country, so as contribution to public health during this sensitive period. Of course, it's very important to keep the immune system strong against the several new types of coronavirus. And for this sufficient and balanced diet is required and fish stands out as an excellent component of such a diet. So the key objective of the campaign was also to give more space to domestic fish, which is produced and caught under control of the Ministry. So in practical terms, what was done? The campaign included special actions in the retail and it was broadcasted on the TV and media channels. So the main idea was to sell some fish species, sea bass and sea bream and Turkish salmon for few days during the spring at a very low cost, basically almost at the production costs. The first campaign started on the 3rd of April and it was meant to last for three days. So the species was sold at almost 23 lira and 25 liras per kilo according to the size. This corresponds to two and a half and 2.8 euros per kilo. The key slogan was life at home, fish on the table. And the campaign was so successful with the increased attention from the public that it was decided to prolong this campaign again by two days. So totally it was five days instead of three. Then the second campaign was initiated by the producer unions and retailers other organizations on the 15th of April and this campaign was dedicated to Turkish salmon. Whole salmon was sold at 32 Turkish liras and sliced salmon was sold for a maximum of almost 40 Turkish liras within the scope of the campaign and this corresponds to 3.5 euros and 4.5 euros. So these are examples of the reaction and measures from some countries and as a conclusion I would like to say that the outlook for the next several months is still continued uncertainty and the recent examples underline the volatility of market stability. But on the bright side the situation looks rather positive with the ongoing medical progress, new products and service innovations, shortening of the value chain, new distribution channels, new marketing mechanisms and all these will jointly benefit the seafood sector as a whole in the next years to come. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for this quite comprehensive and aligned presentation in terms of the issues that we mentioned before and I think also the countries that you have picked up show how diverse the effects can be in terms of affecting more one specific sub-sector or less. It was a quite interesting and illustrative presentation. Now we are going to dive into the section with our country participants to try to address some additional elements identified by the countries and in effect what we are going to try to do is that try to see most of the presenters when we are presenting in Catarina, myself and Charlene who more or less divided the value chain into clusters in terms of distribution, consumption, exports, production. So we are going to do the same now. So we are going to try to invite countries to bring their testimonies in terms of the effects of the COVID-19 in different phases of the value chain. And then let's see what are the national differences between the countries, the commonalities and also see the opportunities because we are not talking only about challenges. We are also talking about opportunities. We are going to start exactly harvesting and processing the first phase of the value chain and to start that it's my pleasure to invite Mr. Abdullah Kurbanov from Uzbekistan to introduce this topic in terms of the country perspective and in country information and elements to this part of the value chain. Mr. Abdullah, please. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening ladies and gentlemen. It's my honor to be here and to have a chance to present about the effects of COVID-19 on the agriculture sector in Uzbekistan and in general to share the practice that we had and the measures that we had from our governmental sites to support the fisheries sectors. So yes, I will not take it too much time yours. I know that you are boring. Here is, yes, let me, okay. Yes, let me start. Then my presentation will be about only, will be in generally effect of the COVID sector, COVID to the agriculture sector of Uzbekistan. During the pandemic, the main risk for the agriculture and fish farming in particular in the world were restriction on international trade and agriculture products. The logistic difficulties have to lead interruptions of supply change of the products to the end consumers in domestic and foreign markets. Factors contributing to decrease in the growth in fish industry as well as employment will be decreased in demand in the domestic markets as a result of the decrease in the income of the population and transfers of the funds of labor migrants as a result of economic crisis. In order to prevent the widespread COVID-19 in the Republic of Uzbekistan, the government has announced the necessary measures and the quarantine throughout the country. Due to the quarantine, the transitions from the some areas to the other areas, areas were prohibited. Across to the country, the people were allowed to take the streets on the when absolutely necessary. This has a major negative impact primarily on the farmers who specialize it in the commercial fish farming. The reason is that in these days was not possible to carry out the precision activity like flowing, chiseling, limaning of the air spawns. Some facilities were closed. It was not also possible to as a fish stocking materials need to be brought from other areas. As a result, many farmers were unable to stock the ponds or the work is done very unsatisfactory. At the same time, in air spawns began to appear diseases at the common with the heating of the in these days in early spring. But it was not possible to buy or bring some essential veterinary drugs to that needed to heat to treat them. And the reason for this that many organizations were in the quarantine or all flights were canceled. The situation had a major negative impact impact on agriculture and it's also agriculture sector industry also. In a particularly air spawns were not prepared before the season and natural lakes and artificial lakes were not adequately stocked or stocked with materials and artificial reproduction special of hatcheries is delayed. The the Republic government is created some convenience for the interpreters after the interpreters affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In a particular, some concessions for the loans and the taxes are also announcing tax holidays was established as special funds to provide the financial assistance to the most influence segments of all agriculture sector. In addition, trucks belonging to the agriculture sectors have been allowed to move without any special permits. This also from our governmental side hasn't met the government has made a special effort especially the president give the order to work directly with the farmers directly with the farmers. I mean going calling to the each farmers who is doing the producing the fish trade trade side fishes or artificial fisheries to know what the problem they have and work with them openly. So and also made some tax holidays I also already I already told it and make them possible to move without any permission and also these who has a import and export operations they were done without any restriction or without any banning. In the region special attention was paid to the transition to all joint measures from the atomic system to the individual management system especially in the field of the food security. According to the measures that was done by our government the in general generally the agriculture sector was not too much affected by the COVID-19 pandemic but at the same time the production was also increased. Here is the on the slides you can see that the production was also increased. This is a thanks to the our support from the governmental individual management system that the local authorities worked with tightly with the private sector also. And fish cluster also in 2019 were also increased number of the clusters and totally production capacity tons also increased. It was in 2019 was 11 but in 2020 the cluster unions increased in more than double and also production was also increased. And the number also had trees also were positively because at the beginning of the at the beginning of the pandemic we were able to inform our government that without support without the special support from the governmental side the fishery sector will be affected very much. So they they were announced that all fish farmers has a tax holiday yeah so for the several months they were allowed not to pay any taxes and also they were allowed to move without any restriction and also they were allowed to buy to if they needed some drugs and or fee this they can take for the taking the goods but not paying paying it's later on so this is also was a kind of big support from the governmental side. And we also governmental started to pay attention more supporting the intensive intensive and semi-intensive agriculture in especially during the this pandemic times governmental started to paying to increasing number of the intensive agriculture yeah so in 2000 yeah totally and it was in 2020 the production more than was more than increased more than 15,000 yeah and in totally the nearly one three quarter of the production came from the intensive agriculture but at the same time semi-intensive agriculture also increased it. Cold water fishing farmers this is also one of the how to say one of the promising the technology promising the ways to increase the fish production in Uzbekistan so government started to paying to close the attention to the increase more export-oriented fish or high well fishes in order to be able to export the fishes so from 2019 and 2020 now the number of the existing is 16 fish farming has been established and the currently they also started to produce I mean that the currently producing more than 2000 yeah 2700 commercial fish production and fish processing here is also it was also from the support from the government for the fish processors fish processors were supported by the governmental by I mean the it was allowed it not to pay for the electricity for the during the current in time yeah and it was also allowed it not to pay for the gas that you use it or some additionally the supply from the the governmental you can use it without not paying then they will after the finishing this pandemic period I mean the lockdown when they finished they started to return the the use it the money that used it for the electricity and an exact rate this is also was a very big support from our governmental especially for the fish processors also and in spite that this pandemic and the after announcement of the pandemic in the connection with the spread of COVID-19 the president of the republic of Uzbekistan took major to preserve the activity of agriculture sector in country support was provided to the domestic producers of livestock and agriculture as well as fish producers and so we planted during this pandemic time in order to support our local population we prepared the special program to support small scale fish farming at the home base it yeah and they provided a loan low rate low rate credits and not they were able not to pay at the beginning it was not allowed not to pay the the loans but more more than three months yeah I'm sorry and so and there was also thanks to the green corridors yeah created by the government of Uzbekistan for the time we delivering the materials and the fertilizers and the fees to farmers and the significant decrease of productivity of the fish farmers it was not observed and by the supporting the local fish farmers and especially small scale fish farmers who is very influenced on this sector at the end of the year the level of income citizen of Uzbekistan from self-employment in October is exceeded the march figures by 11 percent yeah it's a in generally we can we can conclude that the support especially support from the government was very essential for the during the pandemic time and it helped it a lot of it helped it a lot of to to support the self support the farmers and and the beginning of the from the beginning the government will say that the without the food and the food security for this priority sector so we have to pay a huge attention and in order not to stop the day working so at the from the beginning it was a paid a lot of attention to all sectors of the agriculture especially fish farming also yeah this is at the current time for myself thank you very much thank you thank you mr program and thank you for this comprehensive overview of the situation and the role that the government played in terms of trying to to reduce the impact also creating your opportunities we all further do let's let's go let's move to the value chain in terms of distribution and retail now and now we are going to move to the kirkis republic mrs kinaya and mcquad please you have the four good day we respect the participants of the webinar I want to thank the organizers of the webinar and haydar for the fact that they organized the now for today one of the most raised, that is, one of the most current problems and the challenge of today's reality by listening to many reports, well, it is clear that in reality the world has changed with this pavilion and the tactics and marketing strategy have changed even the neighboring country of Uzbekistan I look and there is support from the side of the state is happening and their production has already grown last year they produced 144 thousand tons we of course the country is small and the economy is weak we produce our achievements last year is only 45 thousand tons, so it is difficult to say that the covid has somehow greatly affected the fish industry in Uzbekistan, well, it is difficult to say because the influence was not clear, we mainly have this small-scale production of fish, large producers are literally three four companies in our industry, for example, the production of radio waves is the only export oriented export-oriented species of fish on the production of radio waves, the pandemic did not have any influence, although we buy food in the west in Europe, we also buy fruits in Europe, but nevertheless, despite the fact that there were closed many air messages, but the edge and the food were delivered in time, the only thing, of course, that the impact of the pandemic was a sharp leap in foreign currency, they buy food and caviar on foreign currency and naturally the cost of fish has grown, but the release price remained at the previous level, that is, the income part of the farmers, of course, on the income part, it had a great impact, it should also be noted that at the time of the release on the state border with Kazakhstan, the borders were closed and it had a great impact on the transportation of frozen frozen fish products, especially on the supply chain production and, of course, it turned out to be a product of quality, and it is also necessary to note that the pandemic had an impact on the carpentry, that is, on those farmers' farms that grow high-quality species of fish, because the main fishing plant material is purchased in Kazakhstan, the border with Kazakhstan was closed and many farmers could not, of course, harvest their produce with fishing plant material, but it will of course be said that in two years this hole will be here, then they suffered significantly, of course, the markets of the restaurants were suffering, they were closed at that time, but we have the main period of the implementation of local fish, it is autumn, in autumn the situation has already been normalized, many cafes, restaurants, shops, markets began to open, they began to, well, with some limited measures, began their activity by monitoring the protocols, therefore, especially, it was said above, the pandemic is especially important because we have a small production, it is a small-scale production and the fishing industry is only beginning to develop, therefore, a special impact did not make the pandemic, but from the side of the state, it is necessary to note that no help was given, not in terms of subsidizing, not in terms of material aid or loans, that is, in this regard, the state did not give any help, farmers themselves needed their own strength, that's all I wanted to say, thank you very much for your attention. Thank you, thank you very much, very interesting testimony in terms of providing and it was very fascinating to see the difference between the rainbow trout effects and the car production, it was very, very interesting to see how chewy species in the same countries they have behaved, completely different in terms of the effects and the opportunity that was presented. I'll say thank you very much, but without further ado, because we are just running out of time, I would like to invite the representative, the managing director of Paul Marina in Albania to bring some elements, distribution and retail aspects and effects of the pandemic. Who is Mr. Condi, you have the floor. Hello, hello everyone, good morning. And in Albania normally, have some effects from the pandemic in our sector. But if I can speak for my company is on special cases, because we have not a lot negative effect from during the pandemic years. There are some factors for this situation. We sell our product in supermarkets in Italy and in Europe. During the pandemic, we can sell, we sell more, 20, 25% more. We sell, all our products go to Italy, the European community. We send to Italy every week two or three trucks. And this is a, it was a born abundance, because Italy and Europe restaurants, small shops was closed and all the products go on the supermarkets. The second advantage was our position, geographic position. We are near another countries like Greece and Turkey. Our trucks can go quickly to Italy. We are, our farm produce 40, 45% of products of all Albania who grow brim and bass and sell the fresh to Italy quickly. During the pandemic, the roads, ports was free. Trucks, drivers was free. And it was good factor. After the sector of the suspension and limitation of marine fisheries was one factor more, more good for ourselves. In Albania, in Albania, the aquaculture represent the sector of marine aquaculture was, was the big, because on the shore don't have a lot, have a little drought and aquaculture is very, very small. The aquaculture, the marine aquaculture was positioned in, in the south of Albania, in Gulf of Lora and Saranda near, near of, of the Greece. 80%, 90% of products is here in Gulf of, of Lora. Our company export all the products and there are some small medium companies, farms, medium farms near of our farms, which sell all the products in the, in the market local. Normally for this company have some, have some problems, economic problem, economic problems. Our production is, is may 60, 60% of all the products. And for three months in the spring of 2010, they don't, don't sell or sell a little. And of course, was, was a big problems for, for this farm. The government don't, don't, don't support, don't support the state, did not provide any assistance for this company. Only some 300 euro in months for two or three people. Really, this company don't, all the people, all the workers or the, was, was working, don't, don't out. This is, this is our situation. And we, we, we continue to, to, to sell. In this period, we sell three or four trucks to, to, to Italy. And the product go up and the, the sales increases. Like, this is the situation in, in general, in our farm, in, in Marine aquaculture in, in Albania. Okay. I think, I, I thank you for, for, for this, for this meeting and yeah, thank you very much. I think it was very interesting to see the private sector perspective through in terms of what are the, the main challenges and opportunities and also no disruption in the case of the exports to Italy as, as you mentioned. To finalize this move through all the value chain. Let's, let's go to Ukraine. We have Mr. Ogdenek, who is going to, to give us a testimony on also this, this, this segment of the value chain approach. Please, you have the phone. Hello, do you hear me good? Yes. Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. I would like to welcome all organizer and participants of this and I'm really grateful for the invitation to take part in it. And I think that such events are very useful for exchanging of experience, how to react to such, to such situation as COVID-19. I will shortly describe the situation in the situation in Ukraine. How, how, how it's COVID-19 impacted the fishery sector, the Ukrainian fishery sector. In particular, in first half of 2020 was the most difficult period due to the active increase of incidents of COVID. The government was forced to take unprecedented measures for, for our country. Actually, it was all economic activities were restricted to Ukraine. Almost all intercity and urban transportation were stopped places for entertainment and public catering markets and other retail spaces was closed. And actually, all these measures have undoubtedly affected the fishing industry in some aspects. In general, the spread of COVID did not particularly affect actually opportunities for fishing and aquaculture, but these restrictive measures had a significant impact on demand of fisheries products due to reduced purchasing power. According to our estimates, the fishing sales decreased up to 40%. And also it was difficult with logistics supply. It's namely supply fish to supply fish to retail chains, limited opportunities for citizens to use public transport. It was also reduction of number of places to sell products due to cultures of markets, shopping malls, bars, restaurants, public catering and fathers. And actually, to a lesser extent, to a lesser extent the COVID affected also the growth of value for fish and fish products, in particular aquaculture, because Ukrainian aquaculture in some kind depended from imported feeds. And due to the difficulties with closing borders, prices for feeds were a little bit growing. And also it's affected prices for actually aquaculture production. Given this range of mentioned problems in Ukraine has begun to develop an international, internet trade. I mean to sell fish and fish products. We are direct websites of stores, social networks, social networks that offering calm delivery. And also fish vendors were selling, started to sell their products through the large market spaces. Also there is delivery companies significantly extended scope of their activities and by offering deliveries, delivery of goods from those retail chains that that wasn't providing any delivery services. Also to react to this new challenge is our government later introduced more plans for important vent in the description. And it was named adaptive parenting, which alludes to parenting or weekend petitions in certain regions of the state. Adaptive parenting is based on the weather. You hear me now? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I guess I need to repeat a little. In the middle of summer, our government introduced more flexible mechanism to imposing quarantine restrictions. Yes. It was named adaptive parenting and it was based on the You have to approach the mic again. Sorry. Yeah, now it's fine. Oh, that's good. And it was dependent on the level of affected by COVID-19 people in certain regions. This approach avoided the mass restriction of business activities through the country and helped to intensify economic activity in the field of fisheries. Also there was introduced some preferences to public catering like restaurants, pubs, bars, restaurants, which selling dishes to eat outside. And also government was compensated some affected amount of money to producers, which limited their activities for some time. It was a government program. And I would like to mention that actually this internet rate and buying fish from home, it's actually like a new trend and new habits for Ukraine. In this regard, I think I will stop here and thank you for attention. Thank you. Thank you very much. Very interesting. As again, I'll say it matched perfectly with the overall particular the framework that Charlene, for example, highlighted in the new trends of trade in terms of deliverables, the new deliveries methods for fish and fish products, and also Ekaterina mentioned some of the issues that you just touched upon. So after going through all these development changes of different countries, I would just would like to reiterate that for the open debate now, participants can pose their questions in the Q&A box. I'm going to handle back to Haidar for the coordination of this open debate, but please use the Q&A box to pose questions. Thank you. Thank you to all. It was a very productive discussion, a very productive amount of useful elements that we brought to the discussion and to the general knowledge of our audience. Thank you again to all the participants. Thank you, Marcio, and thank you to all panelists for their reliable contribution. Dear colleagues, now we would like to have an active debate as much as possible. First, I mean, I have some questions which has been addressed to the panelists, but meanwhile, as underlined by Marcio, we would like also to get your oral intervention remarks for this session. The first question that addressed to us is most related to the key remarks made by the many panelists, in particular, Akaterina, who underlined that in our region, many countries took measures to medicate the negative impacts of the pandemic on fisheries and aquaculture industry. And most of these countries gave a very special focus on the support of domestic production. So the question follows. One of the participants says that against that background, many countries imposed some fisheries import bans. Are they appropriate to impose such a ban under the current WHO rules? Marcio, maybe you will provide an answer to this question. I hope my question was clear, because I also had some difficulties in understanding the some panelists. Please. Yeah, maybe I'll start then, Akaterina, please, if you want to jump in and add more the local dimension. Because I just, I think the examples that we had in all interventions and presentations were very associated with new niches for local distribution. But in terms of the WHO, and I'll leave to Akaterina to answer that, but in terms of the WHO, I just would like to reiterate that any kind of restriction imposed at the border of a country has to be aligned with science-based measures. We cannot go to impose any restriction, which is in terms of the import of a product, which is not science-based oriented. And in this regard, I would like to reiterate so far that the World Health Organization has stated that there is no evidence that the virus of the COVID-19 virus can be transmitted through food or package. So this is something that there is so far for the moment, there is no evidence on that. And if a country wants to impose restrictions on base or back, it has to prove in scientific basis why they are imposing restrictions. And then, sorry, I'll give to Katarina to explore a little bit about these nuances of the leveraging of local consumption based on the restrictions of export. Yes, I would say this is a very difficult question. And I think there are not so many clear answers we can provide, because first of all, many countries, the pandemic, so there are no common clear rules. Even if they are, each country can introduce the emergency situation. And based on this emergency situation, the country can impose its own rules. So it's very difficult to interpret. And because you see now it happens in the EU, in the European Union, where countries do not agree between themselves on certain issues, on the border restrictions on and so on and so on. So it's, I would say we are now in the very turbulent situation. And the only way is for the country and for the aquaculture producers, for the fisheries producers and so on, for the stakeholders of the industry that we need in one way to adjust as soon as possible immediately to the requirements of the countries and at the same time focus on the domestic markets. Because rules in many countries, they are changing quite suddenly, unexpectedly and so on. But of course, we cannot just abandon, let's say, this idea of the importance of the expert, but just it confirms that the expert has to be diversified. They always diversified in terms of products, in terms of countries, product forms and so on and so on. And of course, we need to adjust to the situation, to the requirements of the countries. And at the same time, they diversify our expert and at the same time work with our domestic market. Thank you. Thank you very much. We have an additional question which is related to the spy of broodstock in the Central Asia. The question says whether the region has some problems in getting suitable broodstocks. To my knowledge, in the past, there were some regular programs for selection and the use of the broodstock in the region. And some countries are able to sustain a good broodstock pool, but some are dependent on the supply from the other countries. And I would like to pause this question also to Uzbekistan, Abdullah. Abdullah, maybe you can provide an answer to this and consider the fact that now the water fisheries and in particular aquaculture industry is witnessing a big progress in Uzbekistan. So could you please touch on a bit on the broodstock, the importance of the broodstock supply in your aquaculture, please, in particular and culture-based fisheries, please. In 2019, Uzbekistan had a permanent broodstock supply in Hungary, with our foreign colleagues in the Malayian region and in other regions, brought a direct broodstock supply. And this year we are planning to bring a good broodstock supply from England, and in addition to that, we are planning to bring clean, clean, clean broodstock, broodstock, fishing materials, in general, in the future, so that we can develop and work on this direction. This is very relevant. In general, today in Uzbekistan there is a project on the development of the aquaculture sector. International specialists also said that it is necessary to update existing broodstocks and to update their blood, so that the types that we have, the states that we have, it was also brought up in the Soviet Union. In the last 20 years, there was no such special attention paid to develop the permanent broodstock. Thanks to the government of Uzbekistan, especially thanks to our president, attention is paid to the creation of the selection of permanent broodstock. And last year there was a president's announcement about the subsidiary of the permanent broodstock, which will be brought to Uzbekistan the permanent broodstock in the future. This also has a positive impact on the current day. Many farmers already know that the state government will receive certain support in this direction. They have now begun to organize cooperation with different countries. This is the first thing that we have now. This is our stock, ordinary stock, but in the medium-term and long-term prospects, we want to further expand the list of cultivated broodstocks that we have today in Uzbekistan. So, a mother's broodstock. Last year, I remember, there were many webinars, seminars that were organized with different international organizations on the cultivation and content of a mother's broodstock and the whole production. These directions, these seminars were very useful for the broodstock entrepreneurs who are already working on how to maintain and how to further cultivate them, so to speak, a more updated method, improved method of production, proactive methods, and so on and so forth. Although I would like to say that in this direction, in Uzbekistan, yes, it is really special to pay attention to the creation of selected broodstocks. And in the medium-term, due to the short-term prospects, we will definitely work with cold-water fish, which will definitely not spread in Uzbekistan today. These are Siberian asyotras, forels, lobsters, so that we also have our own mother's broodstock line. At least we would like to be able to effectively train you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Abdullah, for this information. Now we have another question. I mean, interestingly, our case studies show that, okay, despite the series of challenges posed by the pandemic, there has been even a production increase in the region. So the question says that, just a second, please, without a clear indication of future, future of domestic and international markets, how such an increase in fisheries could be sustainable? I will be happy, Shirlen, if you answer this question, please. Yeah, thank you, Haida. I think I made a comment on that question that appeared. Yeah, just to maybe, you know, for everyone to have, I think when we are talking about increasing production, we have to be very careful about selecting the species of the country and also the region. We cannot just go on increasing production of something which is not, first of all, not suitable for our country environment, just because it has a demand in the international market. So we have to be mindful of what are the species which are popular in the local market. Of course, something that also is, that can be farmed. At the same time, we have to be also aware or what are the species which have good demand in the international market. For example, I'm just giving an example for shrimp. The demand is really strong, you know, international market and also it's also increasingly popular in many of the local markets with the introduction of Wanameh. Wanameh is making shrimp more affordable now. So we see a lot of markets, a lot of countries are already producing them themselves and much of this is going for the local production. So really, it boils down to reviewing what works for the country and also what works in the international market. Thank you very much, Shalana, for this response. Now, I think it is time to pass to the conclusion, the remarks part. I invite my colleague Marcio again to underline some of the key messages or remarks from this webinar. Thank you all for the presentation. I think it was a very interesting seminar in terms that we are able to show exactly the nuances of different countries, sometimes different regions. And I just want to show to you that during the entry presentations of the challenges and opportunities, we try to map what countries are worth saying in terms of the challenges and opportunities. And it's quite interesting to know that many opportunities appear. The green ones that are listed here are opportunities. So when we talk about COVID-19 and fisheries and aquaculture, we have to have this dual perspective. Of course, we do have the challenges, but at the same time, new opportunities are arising and we have to take advantage of that. So in this regard, I would like again to thank you all for your presence here. I think it was a very nice event. FAO together with EFOFISH and EROFISH, we are always available to be contact regarding information dissemination, regarding providing easements that we use for best practices, providing technical support. In the presentations that are going to be available, all of you are going to have our contact detail. And once again, in order for the sector to be better prepared for challenges and opportunities, information is fundamental. Accessing information about markets, about trade is fundamental. And in this regard, EFOFISH, EROFISH and FAO can support all of you in accessing that disinformation. So please get in touch with us whenever you need. I would like to thank you all again for being present here. Thank you all the participants, all the speakers, all the panelists. And thank you all regional office in FAO for organizing that. Thank you all. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Marcio, for your remarks. After this, it is time now to terminate our webinar. I would like to thank all participants, the speakers, panelists for their available inputs. My special thanks also go to the organizers, interpreters, technical and communication team working behind the skin for making this event possible. Thank you very much for your attention. Bye. Thank you. Bye. Thank you very much. Bye. Bye. Thank you.