 This is representatives from permanent missions and international organizations, partners, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, dear participants. Very warm welcome to this FAO Geneva Agricultural Trade Talks. My name is Dominique Bourgogne and I am the director of the FAO liaison office in Geneva and I am very pleased to moderate this event today. This is actually the third Geneva Agricultural Trade Talks event of 2022. And I wish to highlight that this series is co-organized with the FAO quarter, market and trade division. Of course, we are extremely grateful to them. Our objective is to share information on important and timely topics that are at the intersection of trade and agriculture. We have a series of events planned throughout the year. They will take place essentially on a monthly basis. I would like to thank you for taking the time to attend our meeting today. Of course, given this very busy time in the Geneva agenda, we greatly appreciate your support and interest in FAO's work. Before starting our event, allow me, even if you're a normal professional in the matter, allow me to share some details regarding the logistics and housekeeping for this virtual session. You are invited to update your name and organization by clicking on the dots that appear in the right hand corner of the box where your own personal video stream appears and select rename. This webinar will be in English only with no interpretation. It will be recorded and will be later available on our website along with the various related resources relevant to this session and all registered participants will be receiving all this. This event is scheduled to last for about 90 minutes. We have reserved some time towards the end of the webinar for comments and intervention. If you wish to intervene, please use the Q&A module, not the chat box. Can you state your name and organization or institution will try to accommodate as many requests as possible. So that's all for housekeeping issue and I would like now to take a moment to present FAO's work to this topic and our speakers. As you know, FAO supports members effort to formulate trade policies that are conducive to improved food security by strengthening evidence and analysis, providing capacity development and facilitating a neutral dialogue away from the negotiating table. In this period, the FAO Geneva Agricultural Trade Talks are based on approach we call the trade highs. Informal, exchanging information, ideas and views without any attributions. Interactive, providing a neutral platform for dialogue and engagement amongst stakeholders and inspirational, sharing knowledge and ideas for use in policy and negotiations accordingly. The global rules based trading system provides a level playing field to its principles of non-discrimination, especially as expressed through the most favorite nation and national treatment rules. As the WTO membership covers almost the whole world, global trade should offer equal opportunities for trade crisscrossing the globe. However, when studying trade paths in more detail, it becomes apparent that there is a disparity between the amount of trade within and among different geographical groupings. Consequently, there should be an opportunity to be ceased to increase trade, especially in the global south. Increased trade can indeed and if managed in an equitable and sustainable way, contribute to poverty reduction and sustainability. Today, a couple of hours ago, the FAO has launched a new report entitled Agricultural Trade in the Global South, an overview of trends in performance, vulnerabilities and policy framework. We are very lucky to have the authors of this report with us here today and they will explain the findings in more details. For that, I'm very pleased to introduce Miss Ischrad Gadok and Miss Cosimo Avesan. Miss Ischrad Gadok is an economist in the market and trade division of FAO. Her expertise lies in global value chains, trade policy, trade agreements, trade and food security, sustainability standards. Prior to joining FAO, Miss Gadok worked as a management consultant with KPMG and an economist with the Canadian Minister of Agriculture. Ischrad holds a master in food and resource economics and a bachelor in science both from the University of British Columbia in Canada. She's currently pursuing studies in management at the SAID Business School University of Oxford. Mr. Cosimo Avesani is a trade policy expert in the market and trade division of FAO. His expertise lies in trade policy, trade agreements, trade and food security, multilateral trade negotiations. Before joining FAO, he served as policy director at the Brussels office of the Transatlantic Business Council and as the chief of staff and policy advisor in the cabinet of the Italian deputy minister for foreign trade. Mr. Avesani holds a BA in international relations from the University of Bologna and an MA in international politics and diplomacy from the University of Padua. Following these presentations, it's excellent to see Mr. Jose Luis Cancelagómez, the permanent representative of Uruguay to the WTO and Mr. Rashid Koka from COTS in Geneva. We share with us some of their views on these topics. We're now hearing from Ischrad about overview of this issue. As mentioned earlier, please post any questions in the Q&A module. We will pass on your question to the presenter following their presentation. Ischrad, after this long introduction, I'm very pleased to give you the floor. Thank you very much, Dominique. I hope you can now see my presentation. Yes, very well, thank you. Thank you very much again for the introduction, Dominique, and good afternoon to all the participants. It's my great pleasure to be here and present the findings of our new report together with my colleague, Cosimo. Several others have contributed to the report as well and we are happy to have the opportunity to present the findings and discuss with the, have a discussion with you all today. So let me get right into the contents. This is structured, the presentation today is structured very similar to how the actual report is structured and I'll start by providing a very brief overview of the scope and objectives of the study. I'll then discuss the first part of this presentation which is providing an overview of agricultural trade patterns in South countries and discuss the agricultural trade dependence that these countries have on specific products and trading partners. After this, I'll hand over to Cosimo to who will present the remaining three sections focusing on South countries and the multilateral trading system, their participation in regional trade agreements and he'll also offer some conclusions and policy priorities. So let me start by mentioning that in this study we refer to global South or South countries interchangeably and this grouping essentially encompasses 150 countries, states and territories. What we've found was that in other technical reports there's no universal definition of South or global South or North. It really depends on the purpose for which that study is being done. So sometimes it's defined purely by income classification sometimes by political groups but because in our case we were interested in regional trade patterns we adopted a regional classification for the purposes of our study. This is the UNDP classification of developing regions and this includes six regions. So all the countries that are within these regions are considered South whereas others are considered North again only for the purposes of the study. In terms of agricultural products this report refers to all those that are covered by the WTO agreement on agriculture. Now in terms of the objectives of this report the starting point for us was really a request by our colleagues in FAO South-South and Triangular Cooperation Unit. And the idea was to have a sort of a baseline report a snapshot if you will to inform their discussions with stakeholders on issues of South-South trade and investment. So really it provides a snapshot a baseline sort of overview of trade trends of vulnerabilities and of the policy frameworks that underlie agricultural trade in South countries. And we hope that this can serve more as a starting point or the basis for more in-depth analysis and also eventually programming and project design. So let me get right into the meat of this paper. So let me start with an overview of agricultural trade patterns. So North countries, it's important to recognize that North countries actually account for greater levels of both exports and imports of agricultural products than South countries. So on average in 2016-18 the agricultural exports of North countries totaled about 744 billion, the imports around 736 billion, which is 1.6 times the agricultural exports and imports of South countries. So it is higher. That being said, there has been a steady expansion in the participation of South countries in agricultural trade over the last two decades. So whereas in 2000-2002 South countries accounted for about 30% of total global agricultural exports and about 27% of imports, that share has now increased to about 38% for both. And this increasing participation of South countries in agricultural trade is generally consistent with the trend in increasing participation also in merchandise trade more broadly. One thing to note though is that South countries agricultural imports have been growing faster than their exports. So their positive trade balance has been declining, especially after the 2007-2008 food price crisis. And there are several factors that underlie this trend. Of course, there's growing demand, you have increasing incomes, growing urbanization, population size and so on, that's driving demand for increased diversity of products while at the same time, many countries in the global South face supply side constraints that limit their potential for domestic production to be meeting this demand. If we look at the product specialization of South versus North countries, we see some important differences. So let's look first in terms of the export. South countries as a whole as a group are net exporters of primary agricultural products, such as fruits and vegetable, many tropical products like coffee, tea, cocoa and sugar, as well as some process products like vegetable oils. And what's more is that South countries make up a large share of these exports. So for instance, it's something like 68% of global exports of coffee, tea and spices, 61% for sugar, 56% for fruits and nuts. These are all South countries making up these shares. And if we dig even deeper, we find that it's actually a few countries that dominate exports of these products. So for instance, in coffee, Brazil and Vietnam are the big players in fruits and vegetables, it's China, Chile, Mexico, oils, it's Indonesia and Malaysia and so on. On the import side, the key difference is that countries in the global South are net importers of many food commodities, such as dairy products, cereals, meat, as well as vegetable, some vegetable textile fibers, including cotton. And similar to exports, South countries account for significant shares of the global imports of many of these products. So for instance, 65% of all cereals and oil seeds imports are destined for South countries, 30% for meat and dairy products. And again, at least for some commodities, you see that these imports are dominated by a few countries. So China for oil seeds, meat, dairy and fats and oils rather, Arab countries particularly are important importers of cereals, particularly Egypt and Saudi Arabia and so on. There are also significant differences among South country regions in terms of their trade balance. So Arab states are significant net importers. And again, the regional groupings here are based on the UNDP classification, just to bear that in mind. So Arab states are significant net importers followed by South Asia and since 2010, East Asia and the Pacific, which switched from being a net exporting region to a net importing region. By contrast, we see that Latin America and Caribbean has been a significant and growing net exporter. And also since 2011, Europe and Central Asia has been, the net exports have been growing. And sub-Saharan Africa sort of has been very volatile in terms of its net trade position. Its trade balance has nevertheless declined significantly since two decades ago. But going back to these trends about overall increase in both exports and imports of South countries, a key feature of that growth has been growing levels of South-South trade. So in this slide, I'm only presenting the export side, not the imports, just in terms of saving time and the story is somewhat similar. But here, for instance, on exports, South-South trade refers to the share of agricultural exports of South countries that are destined to other countries within the global South. So this chart shows that while in 2000, 2002, agricultural exports accounted for about 40% of total South exports, this share has now increased about 56% today. And the second chart shows a regional breakdown of that. So the chart on top is saying, these are the total exports by region. So you have Latin America, Caribbean, East Asia and the Pacific and so on. These are the total exports. And below, you have the share of those exports that are destined for different markets. So the share that's going to North is in gray and the one that's going to other South regions is in the combination of these pink. And further, you can break it down into whether it's intra-regional, so the light pink, or it's inter-regional. So it's going from, let's say, Latin America and Caribbean to other countries such as East Asia and Pacific and others. So what we see in terms of exports is that the growth in South-South trade, first of all, it's grown in every region. And this is driven significantly by inter-regional trade. So the trade from Latin America and Caribbean and particularly Europe and Central Asia and these are two net exporting regions, their shares of inter-regional South-South trade have actually more than doubled over the last two decades. So there's really a story of increasingly the demand within South countries being met by exports from other South countries. So what does all this mean in terms of their dependence on both exports and imports? And are there some vulnerabilities that we should be mindful of? So first of all, by dependence in this report, we're using a fairly simple measure. We use several measures, but one of the simplest ones is what's called concentration ratio three. And this can be calculated for both exports and imports. So as an example, and sorry, this can also be calculated for both partners or trading partners and commodities. So I can explain this further. In terms of concentration ratio three in partner, CR3 as it's called, for exports, this is measuring the share of the top three destinations in total agricultural exports. So the share of how concentrated are your exports in three commodities. So this captures, of course, the vulnerability to market shocks, sorry, this is commodity CRC. So it captures the vulnerability that these countries might face relating to these commodities. And partner CR3 measures the share of the top three destinations in total agricultural exports. What are the top three markets? What share do they take up of total exports? And so I'm gonna present two charts here. One is for exports and one is for imports. And basically what it's showing is on average for each of the regions, the South country regions. So these are all these different colors. What we see is country dependency on the X axis and commodity dependency on the Y axis. And what we're looking at here is, first of all, A, the extent to which that region on average, the countries in that region are dependent on a small set of partners and the extent to which they're dependent on a small set of commodities. It also shows a relative dependency. So if you're above the 45 degree line, then these regions are relatively more dependent on a small set of commodities and they are on a small set of trading partners. And it shows the change over time. So what happened over the last 20 years in terms of both partner and commodity dependency, a horizontal shift towards the left shows that partner dependency went down and a vertical shift, upward shift would mean that the commodity dependency went up. So in terms of exports, what do we see? Firstly, we see that in all of these South country regions, their commodity dependency and partner dependency tends to be higher than that for North countries. Secondly, we see that these regions are relatively more dependent on commodities than they are on trading partners. And that in most regions, while partner dependency has declined, there's a leftward movement, there's commodity dependency has gone up in exports. So there's an upward movement in the dependencies. In terms of imports, we see relatively more diversity. So we see, for instance, some regions are relatively more dependent on specific trading partners like Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe and Central Asia, whereas in other cases, such as Arab states and particularly Sub-Saharan Africa, there's growing commodity dependency and imports or slight growing commodity dependency and imports. On average, here we see that partner dependency tends to have declined in most regions. So there's more diversification going on in terms of trading partners in both exports and imports, whereas commodity dependency tends to go up, particularly for exports, and to a lesser extent for imports. One thing to keep in mind, these are very aggregate trends. They're simple averages, they're not trade-weighted. So ideally, really, they serve as a starting point for delving deeper and there is significant heterogeneity by country. So I just have two more slides. I know that's a lot to take in. So I just wanted to provide some examples, both in terms of countries on the export side and import side, to try to make this a bit clearer. And of course, I'm happy to discuss this in the question and answers as well. So what this slide shows, focusing on export dependency, is that many countries in the Global South derive over 50% of their total merchandise export earnings from agricultural exports, so particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and in Latin America and the Caribbean. And what this means is that basically over 50% of their foreign exchange earnings are relying on agricultural products. And the share has actually increased in many of these countries over the last two decades. Now, this dependency is exacerbated when we consider that, for instance, in Latin America and Caribbean, even in the largest exporting countries, the CR3, commodity CR3 is over 60%. So not only are they heavily reliant on agricultural exports for their foreign exchange earnings, these are concentrated in only three products in many cases. So this is where the combination of these factors can increase dependency. But that being said, on the other hand, there's a general trend towards diversifying trading partners. So at least in terms of the partner, the export markets, there's a relative trend towards increasing diversification. And again, this is my last slide on import dependency. This chart shows for Sub-Saharan Africa, both commodity dependency in blue and partner dependency in gray. And we see that this is one region where compared to many others, commodity dependency is high and it's actually increased in imports. This shows that in many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, 17 of them, if I counted correctly, this dependency is over 60% and it's increased in 10 of these countries. And these imports tend to be mainly concentrated in food commodities. So for instance, Benin, which saw a 30% increase in commodity dependency, agricultural imports mainly comprise of rice, palm oil, and sugar. Another example would be Zimbabwe, where again, it increased and it's mainly comprising of wheat, rice, and soybeans. So it's exacerbated particularly when we consider that in these countries, partner dependency also increased. But again, keep in mind that on the whole, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, but mostly in other regions, partner dependency has declined. So there's increasing diversity in import sources, whereas on commodities, in some cases, it's going up. So let me stop there and I will then pass on one more. Thank you. Thank you very much Ischrat and very interesting, even if, as you say, a lot to take and very dense but very interesting. And I would like now, of course, to pass the floor to Cosimo for his presentation. What do you Cosimo? Voila, I hope you can see it. Perfect. Okay, so we will now look a bit on South Countries and the Multilateral Trading System. So let's see if my presentation works, yes. So one of the major achievements we know about Uruguay around, so the last round of negotiations under the GATT was the establishment of the WTO and of course the entry into force of the Agreement on Agriculture. So to date, we know that the Agreement on Agriculture is the only legally binding multilateral treaty regulating agricultural trade. South Countries have been, we can say, at the heart of these trade revolution with some 75 South Countries that have been members of the organization since 1995. And after the establishment of the WTO, 45 additional South Countries joined the organization. And today only a few ones are not yet members, even though most of them have commenced their accession process, so Algeria, Ethiopia, Sudan, Uzbekistan and so on. But what was the impact of the Agreement on Agriculture on agricultural trade or better, what did it mean for South Countries? So let's take a look first at the types. So with the entry into force of the Agreement on Agriculture, we all know that members of the WTO committed to not restricting imports by any other means than tariffs and to keep their rates within set thresholds determined by for each country. These rates are known as bound tariffs, but members are clearly allowed to increase or decrease their tariffs as long as they keep them within the bound levels. And these are known as applied tariffs. So as we can see here in the slide, the average bound tariffs are rather high in South Countries. However, there's almost no difference between South and North Countries in the applied tariffs. And we're always talking here about the aggregate level. Here we can make three basic considerations. So first of all, that South Countries are usually more open than their bound tariffs would suggest. And if we consider the aggregate value, we can see that while, for instance, bound tariffs for the whole group is set at some 57%, the applied tariffs are applied at around 14. And the same can be said as well for the regional groups or the, let's say the special groups. So seeds, disease, landlock, developing countries and so on. In particular, we see that the difference for LDCs is high. So it's set at around 60% of points. Second, these means that South Countries have considerable watering tariff, which leads us to a third consideration, which is that South Countries could potentially increase their tariffs while respecting WTO commitments. But let's give a look to the state of play in the WTO. So the role of the WTO in ensuring stability, transparency and openness in the multilateral trading system, I would say has been widely recognized. This being said, the growing reluctance of some members to deepen trade talks in the context of the Doha round has somehow hindered the negotiating function of the WTO. And this I would say was pretty evident at the 11th Ministerial Conference of the WTO which was held in Buenos Aires in 2017. With regard to South Countries, however, we can say that they've been actively participating in the Doha round of negotiation as their interest in setting global trading rules has been growing alongside with their participation in international trade as Isha was showing us before. However, as it is normal, there are conflicting positions among South Countries and these positions are very reflected in the WTO discussions where members have formed a number of negotiating coalitions based on their agricultural interests. So depending on whether they are net food importers, net food exporters, if they have interest for special differentiated treatment depending as well on the degree of openness they are trying to achieve from WTO partners. Transparency, with regard to transparency, it is I would say common knowledge that many members have not fulfilled their transparency obligations to the WTO in a timely manner. And this can create problems as failure to fulfill that the transparency obligation can make it hard to monitor compliance with the WTO and therefore seek reinforcement. And in this regard, it should be noted that a large number of amplification will remain pending from the period 1995 to 2019 as we can see here in the slide. And this was particularly the case for domestic support measures. This would set them. And so this is a central pillar of WTO. It provides a security predictability of the multilateral system. It ensures the rights, the obligations of members in the framework of the agricultural culture. And of course it clarifies such rules and obligations through interpretation. Now, according to a study by Joe Glabrin-Zing that was released in 2020, out of almost 600 disputes of 593, that were filed between 1995 and 2019, 14% of full cases cited the agreement on agriculture in the request for consultation. And here on the right side of the slide we can see a trend. So in the first five years following the implementation of the agreement, cases were more frequent, but the frequency of filing as declines is then following a kind of similar path for our cases. And some countries have been largely using this mechanism, either as compliance or respondents, and they've been responsible for some 50% of the cases and complaints for around 30, showing definitely the centrality of this instrument for South countries. Now, on the participation in regional trade agreements, so along with the multilateral agreement, negotiations, WTO members have been increasingly participating in RTAs, but what RTAs are in the first place? So they are trade agreements of mutually preferential nature and include bilateral regional or interregional trade agreements, customs unions, economic unions, and common markets. Since the establishment of the WTO, the number of RTAs notified to the WTO has grown enormously from about 50 to more than 350 directly in force. But why countries are choosing RTAs? Well, one of the key reasons is that by reducing the number of participating countries, RTAs can help achieve consensus on common priorities, promote greater levels of integration and of course, lead to the reclamation. Overall, we also see that the treatment of agriculture in RTAs follow a sort of WTO plus path, meaning that what is agreed among RTAs partners and normally to go beyond what has been agreed at the multilateral level. For instance, partners in many RTAs took important steps to fully liberalize agricultural tariffs. And in the RTA context, South countries are extremely active and they are taking further steps as well in the creation of the so-called mega RTAs. It's a old-fashioned RTAs were typically concluded between natural trading partners, meaning neighboring or historical encounters. However, this has been changing rapidly with new approaches such as RTAs among countries from different continents, as well as agreements that involved parties accounting for major shares of war trade, so the mega trade agreements. Many South countries today are involved either negotiating or because they are enforced in such agreements. And examples include, as you can see in the slide, the CPGTPP, RCEP, Pacific Alliance, the African continent, et cetera, among others. And I would like to spend a few words on the latter. So the decision to establish a continental free-ded area was approved in January 2012 and in 2018, the agreement to establish the African CFTA was signed. The agreement aims at creating a single market for goods and services to lay down the foundation for the establishment of a continental custom union at the later stage. And the agreement aims at liberalizing tariffs, reducing non-tariff barriers, including, of course, in agricultural trade. The agreement has such as enormous potential for the region and could be a key driver for improved food security and nutrition of the continent. But of course, RTAs are not only, let's say, funding games and they bring with them opportunities, but of course, also challenges. So RTAs can clearly lead to trade creation since the reduction in trade barriers induced by the RTA facilitates or encourages trade among the parties. However, it can also lead to trade diversion. And trade diversion, of course, when the reduction or the elimination of the tariffs among the RTA parties powers less efficient producers, so with possible impact as well on the sustainability of trade, shifting imports from low-cost countries to higher-cost RTA exporters. RTAs can also have an impact on preference erosion, which occurs when the lower tariffs between RTA parties results in non-participating developing countries losing the competitive advantage they had through previous preferential market access schemes. And this can be an instance for disease, because for example, many developed countries, countries offer preferential market access to disease, but when these developed countries participate in RTAs and open their markets to other known indices, this preferential margin is reduced. And therefore we see that the RTA disease preferences are eroded, which leads us to an additional issue, namely the marginalization of weaker and more vulnerable developing countries. This could be of particular concern for the developing countries whose exports are concentrated in a narrow range of products and at this time for a small number of trading partners. So what issue for us fair into before? And another issue is related to the, I would say the trade architecture of RTAs. And here we speak about the so-called spaghetti bowl. What is the spaghetti bowl? The spaghetti bowl is that phenomenon that occurs when the various rules, tariffs, institutional arrangements apply at the same time. And this can create a complex regulatory structure that generates problem for both the exporters and importers and the fact in turn, the trade flows. I think for instance of the possible problems in the application of the rules of origins. Now in many RTAs, the different rules, the rules are different depending on the product in question. So whether the goods are fully obtained in a country or whether there was a substantial transformation of the goods, well, each RTA can therefore imply separate certification processes to demonstrate compliance with such rules. And this creates additional regulatory complexity with using in turn, let's say the benefits from the preferential treatment that is normally accorded to the RTA. And now a few words to conclude. So throughout this time, we understood, let's say a few things. First of all, that increase the South-South trade contributes to the diversification of thought departments and that it uses countries' exposures and vulnerability to exogenous shocks. As a consequence on the export side, it would be important to take advantage of growing market opportunities and promote South countries' market taxes while on the import side and in particular in a network importing countries, trade facilitation practices should be implemented to reduce the regulatory barriers and improve trade efficiency. At the same time, to let's say mitigate the risks associated with trade openness, target social protection, labor market and other upskilling measures should also be taken into account. We also saw that many exporting countries tend to concentrate exports in very few products and that many import dependent countries are facing challenges in increasing production because of little productivity growth. So with regard to the exporting countries, it would be important to promote product diversification and address all those supply side constraints that may impede the export of other competitive products including last-minute infrastructures or digital technologies. And this is an issue that of course touches also upon importing countries where additional measures should also be taken to promote sustainable production and productivity growth and to conclude a consideration on the WTO and the RTAs. So the entry to force of the government on agriculture has clearly led to a net decline in import tariffs and has contributed to trade growth. And likely RTAs have further contributed to expansion of trade in sub-countries. In this context, we believe that sub-countries should continue engage in WTO negotiation as the integration of the system has become, has been key, really key for them to steer economic growth. And with this I would like to conclude. Thank you very much for your attention and looking forward to the discussion. Thank you very much indeed. Cosimo for this very interesting presentation and for the indeed the findings and possibly the policy priorities and actual recommendations that are coming out of it. I think it's really the heart of what we do, document evidence that we make some policy recommendations for consideration. Let me, before opening the floor actually two question and answers and I see already some coming in the chat box but I would like also to ask you to refer to use the Q&A module to pose your question. I would like before we go into that, we are very happy to have Ambassador Cancelar with us. Ambassador Cancelar is the permanent representative of Uruguay to the WTO and he will share his views on how South trade is seen from a government perspective. Mr. Ambassador, very pleased to see you again and you have the floor, thank you. Well, thank you very much Dominique. Good afternoon, good morning to everyone. Let me start by thanking you for inviting me to participate as a discussant in this series of FAO trade talks. And thank and congratulate the authors of the report for their excellent presentation. As the report makes it clear, self-countries participation and importance in global agri-food markets and trade, both as exporters and importers has been increasing in the last two decades. Agriculture productivity growth filled by the incorporation of technology and knowledge has led to expansions in the production of many Southern countries. At the same time, global demography and economic trends including population growth and urbanization coupled with economic growth and increasing per capita incomes have contributed to growing demand for diverse food products. A clear example of this as the report also shows is the case of China, a country that has experimented an important growth and whose consumption of agri-food products has evolved and increased substantially in the last decades. For instance, China's imports of agricultural products have increased by 78% in constant US dollars from 2010 to 2018. While its domestic production has increased by 36% in the same period. China's accession to WTO in 2001 has served as a catalyst for its participation in international trade. China has been the main trade main partner for many Latin American countries in recent years including for Uruguay since 2013. Needless to say, there is no one single and undifferentiated South as developing countries have different trade and production patterns. There are net food import developing countries such as North African and some South and East Asian countries on the one hand and net exporters such as most Latin American countries including Uruguay and some European Central Asian and Sub-Saharan countries on the other hand. Let me refer to the case of Uruguay. 2021 was a record year for Uruguayan export which total over 11.5 billion US dollars in a context of high commodity prices. Food and feed products were among the main export including beef, first place with 21%, soybeans, third place with 8% and dairy products, fourth place with 6% of total exports. And our main destination markets were China, 28%, Brazil, 16%, European Union, 14%, Argentina and the United States with 5% each. There is a relatively high level of concentration both in terms of main export products and markets and this can be seen looking at specific examples. For instance, let's see the case of beef. In 2005, 73% of Uruguayan exports of beef were sent to the US and the European Union. But the relative shares of these trading partners fell dramatically as China's share increased. In 2021, only 22% of Uruguayan exports of beef went to the US and the EU while 61% went to China. We see a similar trend for other products for example, almost all of Uruguayan exports of soybeans go to developing countries with China as our main destination and Egypt as our second market. For dairy products, our main export markets in the last few years have been Algeria and Brazil although China overtook Brazil in 2021 after almost tripling 2020 values. Uruguay has always underlined the importance of trade as a fundamental driver for global food security. No single economy can claim to full self-sufficiency. We all rely on international trade for key components of our diet and for access to inputs, machinery and services that allow us to produce safe and affordable food. Trade is essential to bring food from areas with surplus to areas with deficit in production. It facilitates access to food during local production shocks and across different production systems and acts to prevent domestic shortages while leading to a more efficient and sustainable allocation of factors of production. As a country with only 3.5 million people but which produces safe and quality food for 30 million people and can produce up to for 50 million people, Uruguay is an important and reliable contributor to global food security. Together with other competitive producers and exporters of agri-food products in the current group, my country participate actively in the Uruguay run negotiations that led to the agreement on agriculture. This was a major and historical success. For the first time, agricultural trade was put under multilateral rules and the same agriculture agreement and knowledge from the beginning, the need to continue the reform process. As mandated in article 20 and the preamble of the agreement, we still need to substantially reduce agriculture support and protection, correcting and preventing restrictions and distortions in world agricultural markets in order to have a fair and market-oriented agricultural trade system. For this to happen, all the big partners developed or developing should contribute to the reform process in a manner proportionate, of course, to their level of participation and prospective capacities of distort international trade. Multilateral negotiations we have to admit have failed to deliver on these objectives, particularly in the areas of domestic support and market access. With the only major outcome being the historical elimination of export subsidies in Nairobi in 2015, Uruguay has been one of the main proponents in the area of market access, in the understanding that agriculture tariffs continue to be the highest on average and that we continue to face tariff peaks, complex tariffs and tariff escalation in addition to increasingly important non-tariff measures. We share the reports conclusion that is important, very important that southern countries continue to engage in these negotiations and seek to achieve substantial improvements in market access for their products, although we regret that this engagement has been missing in most cases. Besides the need to continue progress on this file, my country has also clearly indicated that there cannot be a rollback of Uruguay round commitments. In 2008, Uruguay was very concerned about the potential creation of a special safeguard mechanism because it would impact normal trade growth and affect in particular developing export countries like us in the context of increased South-South trade that we have been discussing. This situation is not different now as many members continue to oppose the creation of further barriers to trade in an already protected sector in the absence of new trade liberalization commitments. Recent years, Uruguay has been strongly pushing for capping and reducing trade and production distorting domestic support including market price support in order to allow for a fair competition. In this context, we have been very clear that any permanent solution to the issue of public stockholding for food security purposes should be seen in the context of broader domestic support reform. And it cannot be a blank check to provide market price support with highly distorted effects. A permanent solution should also have sufficient transparency requirements that allow to monitor effectively members' commitments and adequate safeguards and anti-circumvation clauses that ensure that the stocks do not distort international markets and nor affect the food security of others and are used solely for domestic food security objectives. Uruguay's interest on this matter can be better understood if we have a look at the evolution of international rice markets. While it was the fifth largest exporter with 8% of global exports in 2010, in 2020, India was by far the main exporter with 32% share of world exports of rice which include basmati and non-basmati. India has invoked twice the interim solution on PSH agreed in Bali 2013 after having exceeded its de minimis support level for rice in 2018, 2018 and 2018, 2020. And many questions have been raised at the WTO Committee on Agriculture regarding its compliance with the Bali decision. And this is an issue that Uruguay has been following with interest given that around 90% of the rice we produce is exported, which makes rice one of our main export products with exports of 400 to 500 million US dollars per year. This also makes us one of the top 10 global rice exporters selling rice to over 60 countries including not only Latin American and European countries but also destinations such as Iraq, Turkey, Sierra Leone and Senegal, among others. In a context of stalemate in multilateral agriculture negotiations, many countries have resorted to a second best, the negotiation of RTAs. While this has allowed for a certain liberalization of a grateful trade, this has been only partial thereby leading at times to trade diversion as it was shown in the report itself. And also to, as the spaghetti pole phenomenon, again, we have clearly seen this in the report in which regulatory and institutional arrangements governing different RTAs apply at the same time which sometimes produce complexities for international trade. For example, when it comes to rules of origin. Many Latin American countries have participated in this trend while with Chile, Peru and Mexico as some of the most active negotiations of RTAs and Mercosur countries lying a bit behind. Uruguay believes there is work to do on disregarding different configurations as participations in RTAs can complement multilateral negotiations. Although we have to keep in mind very clearly that they shouldn't replace them. So thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador, for presenting your views and illustrating that with the example of your own country, Uruguay. I think this is very clear and for, of course, linking to the findings and recommendation of the report where I see a lot of coincidence between the concurrence between the two. So thank you so much. And again, I really appreciate that you all present your participation. We now move to our next speaker, Mr. Rashid Koukal from the Geneva-based NGO Cups. Would like to share with us some remarks on this interesting topic. And I don't see Mr. Koukal on the screen. I'm here, I'm here. Can you hear me? Yes, okay. Thank you, Mr. Koukal. So the floor is yours, please. Thank you very much, Dominic. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. I have had the honor of working with several AFIO colleagues for almost 25 years now and I'm very pleased to see that a couple of my old friends, Jamie Morrison and Katia are also among the participants. So thank you. Thank you also for the kind introduction. Let me, before I say a few things, let me make two important caveats. I am Executive Director of Guards International Geneva, which is an international southern NGO with its offices in India, in Kenya, in Ghana, in Zambia and in Vietnam and Washington, DC. But I'm speaking in my personal capacity. Also, since this is being recorded, and I just want to assure that in terms of the little time I have, perhaps things, some of them at least, may not be as clearly comes out as was done by the other presenters. So I would be happy to clarify them in the subsequent question-answer session and would not like to be misunderstood. Thank you very much for bearing with that. The study is quite good. I had the chance of reading a draft version that was shared with me quickly. I think it has not just good research, but several points for deeper reflections and for discussion and for taking appropriate actions. So congratulations to the authors there. And I think that, I know that the study must have been initiated much before the current crisis that we are facing, but I think it is quite relevant from that point of view also of this, the present context, what I would call, due to very heightened concerns about food security and these disruptions in agriculture and food trade. What this, the current crisis, tell us many things, but let me pick up too, where the trade becomes really important. The need for diversified sources and destination for both imports and exports. And this point comes out quite clearly, even without referring to the current situation. I would also argue that the current crisis also tell us to do that, the diversified sources and destination. There is an important need to fill in, what I would call the gaps in the soft and hard trade infrastructure. Trade, of course, requires production and exchange, but it does not take place in a vacuum. For it to flow between countries and among countries, both the hard infrastructure, the ports, the road connections, the rail connections and all that as well as what I call the soft infrastructure, knowing the other market, knowing the rules there, the banking relationships, the marketing relationships. So these are equally important. Actually, in our work in Africa, where we have worked a lot till some years ago, it was not a very unusual scene to see a country finding it more convenient, cheaper, to trade with a historical partner in Europe than the country next door. And one major reason was lack or in a very limited, this hard and soft infrastructure. So that needs to be filled in. And I will come to that point in a minute. And that's where if I now can turn to some of the points in the industry, which I acknowledge is very good, very broad, I just for illustration purposes and maybe to make some of my subsequent points, we're talking about the South-South trade, three, what I would call the indications, which I think we must reflect long and hard, that while the South has been increasing both imports and exports, but as Ishrat also mentioned, since about 2008, 2010, we see that exports have increased less than the imports. So this net trade balance has widened. And of course, there could be good reason. On the demand side, as she mentioned, population and as well as purchasing power with the growing prosperity in parts of the South, that is increasing the demand. And I would imagine that trend of increasing demand will continue. Both the population is going to keep increasing in many parts of the South. And one can hope that perhaps the purchasing power and the growth also. But on the other hand, the supply side, as she said, I would call it the growth in production and productivity has not matched that demand. So that is clearly a troublesome area that has the production and productivity growth in the countries of the South, in agriculture taken place and what does not see it happening all over. And we need to reflect on the reasons for that. In terms of the composition, again to point to reflect that, we see that the major exports of Southern countries are what I would call the fresh product. Many of them tropical products, coffee, cocoa, sugar and what we call in the developing world, the cash crops. And many of these, of course, go to the North or more of long areas because I would call them, these are consumer demand where the purchasing power is high. On the other hand, we look at the imports and that is heavily concentrated what can be called the food commodity, cereals, meat, dairy. And that's where I call it consumer dependence because these are often part, like cereals are often part of the basic food. And there again, can we think of one of the other things which can be relevant in this interesting complex picture? Some of these products, dairy, meat and cereals have been kind of sacred cows in some of the OCD countries in terms of absorbing quite a bit of domestic support. So point for reflection there as well. Then of course, find out the third indication in terms of the regions. Yes, Latin America and the Caribbean being generally more exports and then Arab countries in South Asia and East Asian Pacific since more recently more import. So again, one can think, okay, can there is there is a possibility to mix and match there? Now from there, my own reflections moving towards, although I have not set the stage for making detailed recommendations but I will still go ahead and perhaps offer some suggestions. And then of course, that I think a lot of what Ishra, then Kasimo and Ambassador just mentioned would be relevant for that, though not all the points. I would say that, yes, we need to strengthen the Sousa trade and that becomes even more imperative in the current crisis, but that is not just for the sake of it. So it's not like, okay, we should replace trading with North and for ideological reasons is to start trading with South. I think the overall objective is to increase this trade to strengthen, to promote, to ensure food security all over the world and particularly Southern countries because they get hit harder and then of course for their development. So keeping that larger objective in mind strengthening Sousa trade makes a lot of sense and that can be done through several ways and many, many other points have been raised. So let me pick up a few of them. One I would say filling in these gaps that I had mentioned earlier is quite critical. The hard and soft infrastructure of establishing trading relationships among the countries of South, this is still in some cases advanced but in many other cases we go across the developing world and we see this not really being the full case. So attention focused to that because that would also add to this the objective of diversifying sources and destination which can be quite a good outcome for the countries of the South and I would argue for the world itself. Then when, remember the earlier point is growing gap and then of course, which created between exports and imports securely shows the need for increasing production and productivity and that's where the investments at the national and regional level in increasing that agricultural production and productivity through various means is really important. The third I would briefly mention yes, about RTS, the RTS can be a good vehicle to build that infrastructure and filling the gaps that I was talking about to motivating, promoting, strengthening, supplementing the investment that I talked about and that's where I don't think that the need is to sign, negotiate even more RTS, not necessarily. It's more like, okay, can one look at them with a view to deepening and broadening particularly when it comes to agricultural trade and the needed policy instruments there and this is where I think more definitely can be done and should be done. And finally, I know that no talk on agricultural trade would be complete without talking about the WTO and the multilateral trading system because yes, it is very clear that any comprehensive approach towards agricultural trade have to have actions at the WTO because one glaring example, countries would not reform the domestic subsidies except in the multilateral setting. So that's why coming back to the reform agenda in the WTO, these long old negotiations, I started my Geneva carrier in 95 as a Pakistani diplomat to the WTO including dealing with agriculture and agriculture was called A-word, don't utter it. And I'm just surprised that despite the passage of more than 25 years, we have not made much progress, hardly any progress apart from the historical decision on export competition. So taking that agenda forward in the WTO is critical and I would say that that's where probably I would put more emphasis on the domestic support reform that is clearly an unfinished business of 30, 40 years old. That has this impact when we look at various products and crops, particularly some dealing with food security, a very high level of subsidization often by the countries of the North does depress or can depress local prices which can have an impact on the investment decisions increasing the production in the South which can lead to more trade at more production. So definitely that agenda needs to be taken forward. Let me also mention there one thing which is not part of the directly in the agriculture negotiations but I think the current situation does warrant an attention on that and that is the issue of net food importing developing countries which are dependent on food imports and what to do with them because in the current crisis that is again they are bearing the brunt of that. And then of course that's where definitely more South South trade, more help to those countries as well as adequate WTO actions will be really, really urgently needed. So let me stop here with thanks again and as I said, perhaps some of the points our making may not have been very clear. So I'll be happy to explain more if needed and answer questions. Thank you Dominic, back to you. Well, thank you very much, Rashid. I think to me it was very clear but thank you very much for your reflection and for your points and also on diversification of sources and destination and for making reference to these hard infrastructure, soft infrastructure and making a relation also to the role of the RTAs as perhaps you said we don't need more of them but we need to deepen and broaden and to that they can be a good vehicle to fill the gap. I think these are some of the many very interesting recommendations which you made. So thank you again for this. And now I will go to the next part of our session which is the Q&A that we have received some questions and there were already some in the Q&A in the chat box. So I will go straight to Ischrat most probably with questions that we have received from Tamaz Vatai was referring to the current situation which is indeed highlighting the vulnerability of net food importers developing countries to crop supplies from other regions. How could South-South trade and trade within the region address these vulnerabilities? This is the first question. And then the second one still from Tamaz Vatai is reasons for low income countries share in global agri-food export is very low around 1% and they export mainly unprocessed agricultural communities. All their production capacities and trade could be enhanced through South-South cooperation. So Ischrat, the floor is yours and you may want also to engage with your colleague Cosimo. Yes, absolutely. So I can start and Cosimo please do add after my intervention. Both excellent questions. I think on the first point, indeed the current situation does highlight vulnerabilities. This is sort of a case in point about vulnerabilities and managing those vulnerabilities to shocks. One thing I would say is that particularly given this situation in light of the report and what we see in terms of aggregate trends, I actually see a bit of a positive story here, which is that in fact, partner dependency as I was mentioning has actually gone down in both exports and imports. So even in all regions, in most regions in fact, we see that the dependency on specific or a small number of trading partners has declined in imports. So countries today are in a better position to deal with vulnerabilities than there were 20 years ago as a result of having, as a result of many factors. And we saw that increasing levels of South-South trade, we see increasing levels of South-South imports. So what that says is that, and in fact, one thing that I didn't show in the presentation that is in the report is that if you look at just to a simple correlation of countries that increase their, that import more, they tend to have lower levels of partner dependency. This is just a correlation, it's not a causation, but it shows that as countries integrate more into global trade, they diversify also the sources of their trading partners and that in itself reduces vulnerability. So this is sort of the long-term view and this can be of course expedited. I agree with a lot of the points that Rashid was making about how do you actually deepen trade within and among South-South country regions? So deepening RTAs leading to regulatory simplicity, so things that Cosmo was talking about, the spaghetti bowl phenomenon kind of reducing the regulatory complexity that comes with that. These are all things, trade facilitation, these are all things, these are the long-term things that countries can invest in now to enable them to be better prepared for dealing with shocks. But I'd also like to point out a short-term, when you're in the middle of a crisis or in a situation like this, and we saw this with COVID as well, what is the short-term response that needs to happen? And one thing almost counter-intuitively we need to keep in mind is that as countries feel more vulnerable to shocks in international markets, particularly as food prices start to rise, there's a tendency to start imposing export restrictions and that in itself can create a whole host of other problems. And so one thing to keep in mind for the broader global trading system and agricultural trade in particular is to ensure as we did with the COVID situation, to keep agricultural markets open, to keep trade flowing, to ensure that, to avoid these sort of ad hoc export restricting measures to, that can actually exacerbate the problem more than what it really is. Going to the second question about low-income countries being a very small share of agricultural exports, that's absolutely right. In fact, LDCs in particular tend to be, they have been net importers in our study. We found that they've been net agricultural importers for the entire period that we studied. And dealing with that really has two sides of it. One, and I think Arashita already captured a lot of that in his comments. On the one side is dealing with the infrastructure gaps, the sort of the core supply side constraints. We know, for instance, countries, I'm just taking Africa as an example because I presented that, it also has many of the LDCs. They have poor infrastructure, infrastructure gaps, both hard and soft infrastructure, as Arashita was mentioning, lack of access to inputs to finance, and also again, regulatory complexity. So all of these things sort of add to the supply side constraints. But at the same time, you have in some ways, there's a role for policy as well. So you need conducive policies, you need aligned agricultural and trade policies to try to boost, to make sure that there's a sort of a coherent incentive that's being provided to agricultural producers in these countries. You need investments, R&D investments, extension investments to actually reach the farmers that actually face the biggest productivity gaps. So these are some of the ways in which, some of the ways in which LDCs can be supported to first of all boost their own production and diversify their production, meeting their own demands, but eventually also hopefully supplying export markets as well. Thank you. We're in the past to Kossimore in case you need. Yeah, thank you very much, Isshal. And also highlighting, of course, the point of market transparency and the role tools like AMIS, the Agricultural Market Information System can play in this regard, which was established after the food price crisis, Laquilla, G20, and since then it has proven a very, very useful tool. Going to Kossimore and Kossimore, in your response also, I would like also to ask you if you could also address another question that has come up and in particular, when you were discussing the opportunities and challenges in regional trade agreements, you mentioned preference, erosion, marginalization of vulnerable country, and trade distortion. As we see that RTAs are more and more covering regulatory aspects, do you see a challenge in this regard? I think this would be a point of interest, most probably to our audience today. Over to you, Kossimore. Sure, thanks. Thanks, Dominique. If you can only confirm what P-Shot and you said so far, absolutely. It's extremely important now to keep international trade open and to avoid as well export restrictions, because yes, absolutely, they can exacerbate price volatility, they can create a lot of problems, and yes, as Isha correctly said, I see some clear similarities with what happened with the COVID crisis, and I would say that one of the reasons why international trade made it, let's say, through the COVID crisis was that countries took every step to keep trade open, and this was absolutely fundamental. Coming to your other question, so on the problems on trade agreements, of course, the regulatory aspects are clearly another issue of concern in FDX. Just think about all the different non-tariff measures that can apply in this or in that country. So now a day as well, one of the most difficult aspects of trade negotiations is not any more the target regime or not only, but indeed the SPS, for instance, or the TPP chapters. And on the specific problems, first of all, like harmonization toward more rigorous regulatory standards usually brings difficulties, costs, and this can be a problem for many million as well as farmers. Plus, we may end up like for the rules of origins we mentioned before, in a context in which exporters have to cope with complex, multiple, and overlapping rules. And this is why it is important for countries to follow what are the, let's say, the international standards. And in this regard, the only thing I can do is to underline the role played by, for instance, the international standard setting organizations. They support the three sisters, Codex, the organization for animal health, ITPC. And to conclude, as Isha was mentioning before, recall the importance of the trade facilitation agreement. For instance, in cutting red tape. For instance, when it comes to procedures for important exports, and very important as well, the measures for like effective cooperation between customs and other authorities. That will be, yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much, Kozimo. And again, thank you also, Isha. I would like to clarify that the report is available. It's online. So I will make sure that the link for sure is shared and it's also attached to the, I mean, to the proceedings of this meeting and the recording of this meeting. So we'll make sure you have it. So now, before closing this webinar, because unfortunately time is flying, I would like to give the opportunity to Mr. Fatih Adri from the FAO Sarsas and triangular cooperation division to make some observations. Fatih, great to see you and you have the floor. Thank you Dominic. Distinguished participants, FAO colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by thanking you all for participating in this insightful discussion on agricultural trade in the global south. On behalf of our director of the South-South and Triangular Cooperation, Mr. Ye Anping, I would like to thank our FAO colleagues from the trade and markets division for undertaking this informative study with in-depth analysis of agricultural trade of southern countries, including nature of trade in agricultural products, main obstacles and barriers, trade opportunities, implications of trade liberalization and some recommendations. You know COVID-19 has put the global trade and in particular agricultural trade at the heart of the discussions on food security and livelihoods. One of the several findings from the study is that despite the tremendous growth in south countries exports as well as growth in south-south trade as a group, the global south continue to be net exporters of many primary agricultural products and net importers of food commodities. The inclusion of global south in food value chains has been acknowledged to have multiplier effects on employment and the poverty reduction. High dependency on specific commodities and trading partners makes countries increasingly vulnerable to market and policy related shocks. It is then essential and therefore that the global south continues to diversify the portfolio of products traded as well as trading partners. FAO has also a long history in supporting and promoting south-south and triangular cooperation among its member states in the areas of agriculture and food systems. Since 1996, FAO has raised over 435 million U.S. dollars for SSTC. This has allowed the deployment of more than 2000 experts and technicians to 80 countries, transferring knowledge, technologies and innovations to millions of small-holder farmers. SSTC can play a valuable role in fostering its exchange of innovation and good practices on sanitary and phytosanitary measures and technical barriers to trade among the global south and expanding market opportunities across countries with similar priorities and shared development objectives. We look forward for further collaboration in the field of south-south trade, including possible avenues in capacity building of southern member countries and regional economic integration organizations in the area of trade, including trade tools for analysis and methodological support, trade opportunities, trade policy, organization of markets, agriculture-based multi-lateral negotiations and implication also of trade increase on agri-food systems. Let me conclude by highlighting that south-south trade is not a substitute for north-south trade. It is a complement and a bridge between traditional and emerging partners. It offers a model of cooperation and collaboration that leverages synergies stemming from north-south and south-south cooperation initiatives. Before concluding, I would like to thank FAO Lease and Office in Geneva for hosting this extremely valuable discussion and thank you very much. Over to you Dominique. Thank you very much Fatih for your remarks, for indeed highlighting FAO achievements when it comes to south-south and triangular cooperation in general, how it supports south-south trade and the potential because there is a huge potential in south-south and triangular cooperation to indeed support more and better quality south-south trade which you described as a bridge. So this is very important. Thank you so much indeed for that. It is now 4.27, so we have reached the end of our event today and I would like to really thank our presenters or discussants for all their contributions. This is of course highly appreciated. This is what makes the quality of our trade talks. This is, we really appreciate your participation and as I mentioned earlier, we'll be continuing this series of dialogue on a monthly basis hopefully and the next event will be taking place on the 26th of April. We'll send out invitation closer to the date and we hope to see you back for that occasion. Again, I wish to thank you all for your participation and wish you a good rest of the day. We are almost at the end in Geneva but there are other locations participating and we hope to have you in our dialogues in the future. Thank you so much and bye-bye. Thank you, bye. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye.