 Thank you for joining this short briefing on trade outcomes from Davos, the food crisis and the path to the 12th WTO ministerial conference. It's been quite an important Davos for trade, so I'm very pleased to introduce here this evening Bogey Brenda, the president of the World Economic Forum, Dr. Ngozi Ikondri-Iwala, director general of the World Trade Organization, and it's fine Toda Holstetter, the president and CEO of Yarra. I'm going to ask each of them to make a short statement, and then we will open to questions relevant to the topic. So with that, over to you, President Brenda. Thank you so much, Sean, and thank you for joining us, Dr. Ngozi, and also Sventora, and to the press. We are faced with very much slowing recovery. You're seeing inflation in the U.S. and in the U.K. that we haven't seen in 40 years. There are many ways of addressing what we're now faced with, but of the economic tools that we do have available in our toolkit, trade and investments is a very important one. There will be no real saving of this recovery without also major steps taken in the field of trade and also on investments. One thing is to secure what we already got. That is also important because there are more protectionism around the corner. There's potential new tariffs. But there are also signs coming now that there is willingness to look at the tariffs that are there to also see it in the context of the increased inflation. It is incredibly important that we have a predictable trade regime and that we incentivize also trade because we know that trade is the engine behind much of the growth that we have seen in the last decade. So that's why I'm very glad that we had CEOs gathered today that last fall called for action on the trade side as part of the recovery and securing the recovery. I know that also Dr. Ngozi met with trade ministers after that. I'm glad that that took place. And I hope Davos air is changing a little bit of the sentiment there because so much is at stake in the run up to MC 12. And we should definitely know secure some positive signals on the trade side. That would be a very, very important part of also strengthening the recovery that as I said slower growth and much higher inflation. Some countries really are faced with a real challenge moving into a recession in Europe and in the U.S. and some major economies is more a question of very slow growth and much higher inflation. And then we need to get the trade agenda right. And there will be no way of getting out of this without also starting to trade with the shoulder and get the investment piece going. So thank you very much, Dr. General. Well, let me just add to what Bogg said in the issues that we feel that trade is part of the solution as was just said to the multiple crises we face in the world today. This is really unusual that we're in a world in which we're experiencing simultaneous crisis at the same time. We have an international security crisis. We have a health challenge crisis with the pandemic. We have a climate crisis. We have a food crisis all happening at the same time. And the question we ask ourselves is how can trade contribute to solving this crisis and how can trade be part of the solution to what I see as challenges of the global commons. If you look at these crises, what they tend to have in common is that no one country can solve them by themselves. It needs global solidarity to make it work and the WTO is part of the multilateral institutions created to try and help solve problems. So, you know, and trade has been instrumental in the last, as we thought, we were rebounding after the crux of the pandemic seemed to be passing in many countries. Trade in 2021, the merchandise volume of merchandise trade grew at almost 10 percent last year, twice the rate of GDP growth. So it contributed almost twice the rate, contributed substantially to GDP growth. And then the war in Ukraine hit. So you have the war, you have the pandemic, you have all the things that we're going on before with climate. And so we've had to revise down projections. We had been projecting 4.7 percent for growth in merchandise trade for 2022. We've had to revise it down to 3 percent and we are projecting 3.4 percent next year. And there's a lot of uncertainty around this projection because, you know, for the first time we really feel there's so many uncertainties and most on the downside, a lot of downside risks because we just don't know the way things will go, for example, the war. That being said, in the various specific crises, I'll just quickly say that trade has been part of the solution. For the pandemic, for instance, the WTO worked with the CEOs of vaccine companies to help them monitor their supply chains and make sure that inputs and outputs could flow as smoothly as possible. Why is that? Because WTO members, we can see what export restrictions and prohibitions they put in place. What trade facilitating measures they also take, because we have a very good trade facilitation agreement, that when our members implement that enable goods to flow. So we really worked with the CEOs on this. We also worked with them on decentralizing and de-concentrating manufacturing and production to diversify risk. So that was being part of the solution. In the food crisis that we are in now, we also think that trade is crucial to play a role. Actually, we can't do it without trade. They are net food important countries who don't have the means to grow their own food or have very little means. If you don't have trade, you can't move goods from where they are grown to where they are needed. And so we are coming in, we are trying to see, tell our members also on the export prohibition and restriction side, let's keep it down because we don't want this to exacerbate and lead to price spikes. So the WTO, we are monitoring how many export restrictions we are trying to get members. We have about 22 countries now with 41 export restrictions or prohibitions on food. And we are 164 members, so it's not a panic time yet, but we are trying to keep it low. So we can contribute to that. We can contribute to moving food. We are very worried about this situation with the grain in Ukraine and how we move 25 million tons now. We need safe corridors in the Black Sea, how the harvest is next month, how do we accommodate another 25 million tons, both for the sake of the Ukrainians but also for the whole world. So those are just two examples. When we say trade is part of the solution, we mean it. Come for climate, without trade helping to diffuse technologies, the new green technologies, you also would not have solutions. So let me just leave it at that and just all I want you to leave here with is trade is part of the solution to the challenges we face. Thank you. Thank you, Director General. Mr. Hoseva. Thank you. And as we just heard from the Director General, we are in a food crisis right now. 276 million people are faced with acute and severe food insecurity. That's twice the number we had two years ago. And that's even before we get the full impact from what is happening now because of the war in Ukraine. And while the war in Ukraine is accelerating this, climate is part of this as well impacting weather patterns and making farming really difficult. Like what is happening now in India, 50 degrees Celsius, impacting the wheat harvest, look at Pakistan, North America with heat waves now, floods, droughts, and that could go on and on. And we have a food system that is global and it's interconnected. Indeed 80% of the world's population relies on imports for food, whether it's food from farmer or input to farming. So it has huge implications. And if you take lessons from the past back in 2007-08 when we had the food price spike, about half of the price increase was a result of policy measures, export bans that just amplified the situation. And it's important that we keep trade running and products flowing, as we also heard from the Director General. Looking at the numbers right now, they are worse than they were in 2007 and 2008. And we all know what happened then with social unrest and destabilization. And while we then have 25 million tons of corn and wheat now trapped inside Ukraine because of blockage, food going to waste while people are dying from starvation happening right now. Now, I'm not a politician, so I can only plead to humanity. And what we need to do now is to strengthen the food system, stronger regional systems, strengthening the farmers, making sure the farmers are paid for the work that they do, looking after soil health to make it more resilient to climate change and also less than the emissions from farming, which in turn will make the food system more resilient. So it's not just about solving the food crisis or the climate crisis. We can do both at the same time. And at the end, I just wanted to say that I'm pleased to see how prominent the role food has had here in Davos now and also give credit to the World Economic Forum and the teams there for being a convener of getting the whole value chains together to discuss this, because the only way to get this done is through collaboration and in partnerships. Thank you. Thank you. So I'll now take three to four questions. Please identify yourself and be succinct. So the gentleman in the middle. Larry Elliott of The Guardian. How realistic is it, does the panel think, to have humanitarian corridors to get food out of Ukraine, particularly given that the mood at this conference has been quite hostile towards Russia? And I wonder how the panel imagines that Russia is going to allow grain out of the country given the hostile rhetoric. Thank you. The lady in the front. Yes, with AFP, actually my question was related to that one. It was, maybe if you could, is there some detail you can give us on if concrete negotiations are going on for that corridor and how far has it gone, so or not far? Thank you. The gentleman with that. Hi, I'm Jamie Keaton from Associated Press. Wanted to know about the lifting of export controls as a way to get around. Is there any way that tariffs can be, this is Reductor Ngozi, by the way, sorry, Director General, is there any way for there to be reduction in export controls? You mentioned 20 odd countries. Could you just tell us, 22, 20, yes. Could you just tell us a little bit more about that, about what the prospects are of trying to reduce barriers to trade so that the food that is blocked from getting out of the black seat, maybe there could be ways of offsetting that through export controls and tariff reductions elsewhere. Now I'll take the last one from the lady here. Thank you very much. My name is Adiflemi Akinsanya. I'm with Arise News, which is an Nigerian network. My question is both for the director, well actually for all the people. If we are looking to the future, I know that earlier on in the week we had the European Commission say that in response to what's happening in Russia, they are going to not only ramp up their own food production levels but support African countries in order to do the same. I would like to know what you'd expect that support to look like and also when it comes to food producers or fertilizers, what type of support will you need to ensure that just like the Secretary General of NATO said, countries should be a bit more intentional and perhaps focus on making sure that they are aware that freedom is better and stronger than free trade. So what does that mean to you and what can we expect? Thank you. Say that again. Freedom is better than free trade. Thank you. So maybe I'll start from the far end. I'll allow each panelist to answer any of the questions they feel qualified to. Any you would like to take on? Whether I'm qualified to make any predictions on safe corridors, but here we can only plead to humanity but we cannot put all our hopes on that happening. And then it's about what can we do now in the short term? One thing is to make sure that we strengthen the last safety net that we have out there and that's the World Food Program. They are $10 billion short of funding so that is one area where private individuals, wealth individuals in particular, corporations and governments can do something to make sure that that funding gap is bridged to help them to support the ones most vulnerable. There are also grain inventories in many countries of the world that could be released in the short term. And it's also about helping farmers that now cannot afford inputs. I mean we're seeing that across many areas and we're working now in West Africa and Ghana in particular from our side to help farmers to get access to affordable inputs in order to have a direct impact on this harvest. Thank you. Director General? Well, thank you. Very good questions. Just the first one and two from Larry. Hi, Larry. Long time. Yeah. I know. And AFP, you asked two similar questions. What I can tell you is that the Secretary General, the UN Secretary General, is engaged in this. He formed a crisis group composed of key UN agencies or UN related. WTO is part of it to look at the food, energy and finance aspects of this crisis. And part of what he's looking at is these issues of creating safe corridors and looking at alternative means of evacuating Ukrainian grain. You know, rail and other means can take one or two million tons, but it's very difficult. So we really need the Black Sea. And I know that some work is going on behind to try and see if we can get a solution on that. So the Secretary General is involved. And then on lifting of export controls, the prospects. I think the prospects are decent. First of all, with all the monitoring work we are doing and when you monitor, you get the results, you publish, transparency helps. And so our members see that and you see who has, is putting work control. So that's what the monitoring and transparency function. And it helps to put pressure on members or countries that are doing this. In any case, the WTO, for security reasons, you cannot do this for periods of time, but it has to be temporary, transparent and proportionate. So they know it cannot go on forever. So this really helps. And I think that's why we're at 22 countries as at now, we're trying not to go further. You know, as Sven said, there may be countries that have additional and hoarding doesn't help at this time. So instead of putting an export ban, allowing your exporters to export the grain or whatever other food product, including substitutes, is what we need now. We are strongly encouraging that. Let's not forget inputs, improve seeds and fertilizer, which we also need for the next harvest. And finally, on the question from my sister, younger sister from Arise, on the farm initiative, I think part of the problem, if this is, I suspect the food crisis, if we don't get these safe corridors out, is going to last another year or two, to be honest with you. In that case, countries should be looking, developing countries, at how they increase their own food production. And this is where for Africa, for instance, the African Development Bank Board has just approved 1.5 billion to support African countries to intensify their own food production. We have enough arable land on the continent. We can even feed the world. The issue is to get the seeds that are adapted to our conditions and the inputs that can support that, and to farm in a sustainable way, I think. And the farm initiative is trying to work on this from the French presidency, from President Macron. So I don't know about freedom. It's better than free trade. I think free trade and freedom are very much linked. Thank you. President Brende. No, thank you. And I think we're facing a food crisis that we have not seen in decades. And it does not help if additional export bans are introduced and potential hoarding, as also the DG mentioned. We saw that Indonesia lifted the export bans on palm oil the other day. I think more nations should do the same. Because this is really a vicious circle to move into. Then I think we should also look at what other steps can be taken now to make sure that we increase the capacity for food production in countries. We know that fertilizers have been doubled in price. And I think one have to look into systems to support, especially poor farmers, in making sure that they don't end up in a situation where they will get less yield because they cannot afford the fertilizers. And this is core topics also for development assistance. And in addition, I think also the World Food Program and other entities that deal with food should be sufficiently funded. It is very short-sighted if they are no underfunded. Then I think Sventura, Hulsatura and Yara and the companies of the World Economic Forum that are in the big nexus of food, agriculture, but also transportation. Why don't we look at also forming a coalition here for companies looking at how can we contribute in this crisis that has come and will stay there? I think there are innovative ways of doing it. I think we just have to think out of the box. But as I mentioned, the worst thing we know can start to do is in panic introduce export bonds. And we should also remind each other that there are humanitarian laws and principles. Humanitarian laws should not be complied with. Let's not use this press conference to list all the blatant breaks and non-compliance with agreed humanitarian law. But the basis of humanitarian law born in Geneva is that food and also safety for civilians is at the core of it. These are core values and we just have to find ways. That's why I'm also so pleased that the Secretary General and the UN has taken that role. I think there is a scope for the UN here. Thank you. I'm afraid we're going to have to wrap up now. I just, Director General, do you want a last word as we head towards the ministerial? Well, these are very challenging times for all of us, but particularly for trade ministers and for trade. As we head into the ministerial, negotiating will be difficult. You know, the ministers come to the meetings to negotiate. So we have to see whether we can actually do that in the circumstances we're in. So we are aiming against great difficulty to see what we can achieve at the ministerial. What deliverables we might be able to get. So I'm trying to keep optimistic, but it's tough times. So let's see what we can deliver. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Good evening.