 Excellencies, distinguished delegates, participants, and dear colleagues, have a good morning, good afternoon, or good evening depending on your time zones. My name is Funar Karakaya, I'm working as an economist at the Feoliozone Office in Geneva, and I will be moderating the session on behalf of my director Dominique Kouron, who unfortunately could not join us today. First of all, I would like to thank you for taking the time to attend our session today, given the busy agenda of Geneva in the midst of preparations for the 13th Ministerial Conference of the WTO, known as MC13. We appreciate your support and interest in FAO's work. As you may already know, FAO in Geneva is organizing series of trade dialogues in collaboration with FAO's Market-Centrate Division and FAO's Fisheries and Aquaculture Division. Through these series, our objective is to share information on relevant and timely topics related to agriculture and fisheries. In December last year, FAO published six trade policy briefs, FAO's support to the WTO negotiations at the 13th Ministerial Conference on a range of topics, including fisheries, cotton, food safety, environmental provisions in regional trade agreements, and price transmission. Considering that MC13 will take place at the end of next month, today's information session will provide an opportunity to present the trade policy briefs and also to inform about the technical support available from FAO, including data, tools, analysis, and other technical support in line with FAO's mandates. Before starting the session, I would like to share some details regarding the logistics and housekeeping for this virtual session. This session will be in English only with no interpretation. It will be recorded and will be shared with the participants, along with the various related resources relevant to this session. This session is scheduled to last around 40 minutes. We have reserved some time for questions towards the end, so please submit your questions in the Q&A model. While doing so, kindly state your name and organization or institution. We will try to accommodate as many requests as possible, either writing or or literally during the session as the time permits. That's all for housekeeping issues. Now let me introduce our speakers. Today, we are very pleased to have our FAO colleagues joining us from Rome. Mr. Oden Lam, Oden is Deputy Director at FAO's Fisheries and Aquaculture Division. Mr. Georgios Mermikas, Georgios is Senior Economist at FAO's Market-Send Trade Division. Mr. Fabio Palmeri, Fabio is Statistical Research Assistant at FAO's Market-Send Trade Division. Mr. Cosimo Ovesini, Cosimo is Trade Policy Analyst at FAO's Market-Send Trade Division. Ms. Karolina Kozlowska, Karolina is Econometrics Expert at FAO's Market-Send Trade Division. And Mr. Vittorio Paptori, Vittorio is Food Safety and Quality Officer at FAO's Agripple Systems and Food Safety Division. Without taking much time, now I would like to give the floor to Georgios. Georgios will set the background and provide a brief introduction on the work of FAO's Markets and Trade Division. Please, Georgios, the floor is yours. Thank you very much, Pinar, for giving the floor. Thank you very much for organizing this event. And it is a real pleasure for me to be here and to see actually how strong the interest is on FAO's work on trade. Allow me very briefly to give some information on what the trade and market-send trade division of FAO does and how this work is relevant for the Geneva environment and for the delegates in Geneva in their effort to, in their work within the WTO proceedings. I would say that our work on trade and market, on trade in particular, it is conducted in three main tracks. One is the preparation of evidence, building evidence. The second is organization of dialogues away from the negotiating table in a neutral and impartial way. And of course, the third has to do, it's a very common activity in FAO, it's the capacity development activities. With regard to the first one, the six policy briefs that Pinar referred to and which are the subject of this event today constitute part of this effort, building evidence, informing the negotiations, giving, providing support to the negotiators in Geneva or to the delegates in Geneva on that is happening in global trade issues. This is a good example. Of course, we have other important publications that it could be consulted. The division is responsible for one of the FAO's flagship reports, reports that commit the state of commodity markets, the SOCO report, which is published every two years. The next edition will be available in September, will be released in September. It is on the topics of trade and nutrition, which is a very interesting and very topical issue. Of course, we have, at whole publications on trade, we have been working recently on environmental related provisions in regional trade agreements. Some reports will be published soon as well. And of course, we have work on markets. We have the high profile publication of the medium term outlook, a joint FAO, ECD publication that every year looks at the baseline projections for the next decade for major commodities and trade, production, yields, everything for security. So it is something that gives the, set the scene of how things might develop in the next 10 years. We have the food outlook, which is relating to the medium term outlook that I mentioned before. The food outlook provides short term projections for major food commodities. Commodities. And of course, probably the colleagues in Geneva, they know very well the FAO food price index, who shows how prices are developing globally. All of this we use when we provide our submissions to the WTO Committee on Agriculture, regular submissions, FAO as an observer to the committee. So I would invite all the delegates to read our submissions, to see what the situation is, and of course, to visit also a website where the FAO, the markets and trade division website, where they can find all the information and all the publication. Apart from this track, which is evidence building, as I said before, we have another track of work, which is dialogue events in an impartial way. This is a very good example of that. And on that also, we work very well and very closely with the Geneva office. And I would like to thank Pinar on that, where we organize quite often events that are of relevance for the Geneva environment, including the something that has been established now as an institution in Geneva, the Geneva trade talks, where probably all the delegates here today have had the chance in the past to participate. And of course, the last, the third track of work is capacity development in FAO. We have developed some in learning courses, of course, apart from the work that we do at the country level, something that could be relevant for the delegates in Geneva. We have developed some in learning courses, two main learning courses. One is on trade, food security, nutrition. And the other is on agriculture, international trade agreements. This can be found in the FAO, e-learning academy, as it is called. And these are free of charge. And everybody who wants can easily register and have these courses. Odom will follow after me and will speak on these issues. But one of them will soon have also a unit on these areas. So the one on agricultural trade agreements, the national trade agreement. So they cover a big spectrum of the trade related work of the delegates in Geneva. And it would be, probably we consider that it would be very useful for them if they could visit and do the self-paced courses that they can do when they are available completely free of charge. This is the only thing that I want to say, Pinar, it's a very short event. We really have to be short all of us. So I hope that covers the work of FAO, markets and trade division. And I'm here, if anything, clarification is required. Thank you. And thank you very much, Georgios, for your remarks. Indeed, it was a very good summary of what, like, a markets and trade division is doing, which might be of relevance to Geneva community here. And now we will have the presentations by the co-authors of the trade policy briefs. First, we will start with the two policy briefs on fisheries, the importance of international trade for fisheries and aquaculture products and the WTO agreement on fisheries subsidies and the role of FAO. Now I would like to give the floor to Odin, please, Odin, you have the floor. Well, thank you, Pinar, and good afternoon to everyone. I only have a few minutes, so I will just mention a few issues of few elements that I think are particularly important regarding the fisheries and or trade in fisheries products. I think it's important to remember that about one-third, or a little bit more than one-third of everything that is caught or farmed coming from agriculture enters international trade. In fact, 37 percent. So that means that access to markets is incredibly important for the fisheries and aquaculture sector in the world. Developing countries play a very large and important role in production and in exports. In fact, more than 50 percent of all exports entering international markets come from developing countries. And the net export revenues earned by developing countries is very, very important for those coming from fish and fishery products. In fact, they are about the same value as the sum of net exports of poultry, beef, and a number of other agricultural food products. The role of small scale is very important, not only in terms of employment, but also in terms of of volumes on catches done by carried out by small scale producers all over the world, not only in developing countries, but in fact also coastal fisheries in developed countries is very important on the coast for the local economy and for local employment. Then what about the state of stocks? Well, FAO, we monitor about 500, more than 500, commercial stocks all over the world, and we report on the status of stocks regularly to FAO members. About two thirds of the stocks that we follow are where they should be at the level of MSY, the maximum sustainable yield. However, the trend is somewhat negative. So we have a problem of implementing efficient management measures in some areas of the world or not FAO, but our members have sometimes and therefore on our need of assistance. And in fact, this trend, which is worsening when we are looking at the only at the number of stocks is, of course, a challenge for all of us. The good news is that the stocks that are where they should be at MSY are the most productive stocks and in fact produce and contribute much more than two thirds. In fact, 75 or 78 percent time to check the latest figures. So the trend, if you only look at the number of stocks, is a bit worrying. When we look, in fact, around the other on the positive side, the contribution coming from well managed stocks, in fact, is increasing in the total share of supply. I also have to mention and that's the final issue on the trade side or the production side is that whereas capture fisheries are a bit stable, around 90 million tons per year. The increase in aquaculture production is very, very promising, of course. And aquaculture has developed from where it came from 20, 30 years ago to the present level of supplying more than 50 percent of what we as human beings consume of seafood products all over the world. So the future, of course, is not only managing better our marine stocks, but also continue to develop sustainably the aquaculture sector. So that is what I had on the importance of trade for fisheries and aquaculture products, market access, etc. Then what about the WTO agreement on fisheries subsidies and the role of FAO? Well, our role is, of course, to provide technical capacity upon request from our members, WTO members and also the WTO Secretariat, of course. And we do that on a number of issues related to the agreement, especially the fisheries related parts of the agreement in terms of stock assessments, analysis, reporting, guidance on fisheries management in general, implementation of the many tools that we have to address overfishing or in illegal fishing also. So the two elements that are really standing out in the agreement, the role of subsidies for IUU fishing is, of course, very relevant to us and the work we've done on the Port State Fisheries Agreement, but a number of other instruments we have to contribute to improved sustainability of capture fisheries. The role of the RFMOs, of course, we have a secretariat working together with the RFMOs in the world. And then when we talk about the future, well, our work on the methodology on stock assessments, of course, is important. And we do that together with our members in order to not only have better assessments, more comprehensive assessments, but also enabling countries to better manage their fisheries in a more effective and more sustainable manner. So we are here to serve our members to provide assistance, capacity building. So please do not refrain from contacting us and Pinar. We are there to to assist. Thank you. Thank you very much, Odin, for the overview of these two pulse briefs in such a short period of time. Now I would like to give the floor to Fabio concerning the pulse brief on Ketten. Please, Fabio, the floor is yours. Thank you, Pinar. And good afternoon, everyone. So this brief provides an overview of trade development in the cotton market over the past 20 years. It also outlines the outlook of the cotton sector in the next 10 years and identifies what the challenges are and what actions can be taken to address such challenges. So if Pinar, can you please? Upload the slide. So. Yes. So available data shows that global trade has increased significantly over the past 20 years with an annual growth rate of five percent. And as you can read, the reached the value of around 26 billion in 20 and 22 boosts the trade in the cotton sector was provided by the implementation of the wide round and facing out of the multi fiber agreement. And in particular, if we look at the regional level, the Asian countries have increased significantly. Their share of imports in the past years, reaching a value responding to over 90 percent of the global cotton imports. While on the export side, the situation has not changed much with the US remaining as the largest cotton exporter followed by Brazil and India. So projections for the next 10 years point to a further expansion on the on the cotton trade that is pulled by strong demand for textile products and also the growth in Asian countries, particularly Bangladesh and Vietnam, which are very competitive in the textile and apparel sector. Whether there are a number of challenges, the need that actually the cotton sector faces in view of this growth. First, the one is the extent to which the global economy will develop and will grow over the next decade. That's because the demand for cotton is the right amount. I mean, it depends on the demand for textile and apparel, so which are income responsive. Then another issue is the the population growth, the slower growth in the population may affect the growth in demand. Then there is the competition from the manmade fibers, particularly synthetic products, also the recycling and not to mention the low level and stagnant level of retail prices in the apparel market, which affects margin for producers. But at the same time, however, there is we are witnessing an increasing application of sustainable standards along the value chain of the cotton sector and also as a preference for consumers for sustainable products. So while it's crucial to strengthen the compliance with sustainable standards at all levels of the value chain, it's also important to assist cotton growers because the adoption of sustainable standards, the compliance of the standards has a cost. So it's important to assist growers, providing technical assistance and access to resources. At the same time, to improve the competitiveness of the cotton product against manmade fibers and synthetic in particular, it's important to improve the characteristic of the cotton fiber to make them more competitive. And these can be done by improving cotton varieties, which is something we already are witnessing, which are improving the variety of cotton products and also exploiting new technology. These, of course, while ensuring and trade reforms address market distorting measures. So and regarding these challenges and actions and the outlook for the next 10 years, I would like to remind that the new outlook for cotton was George was mentioning will be available in July this year with the new projections, which point to further expansion cotton trade, as mentioned before. So with this, I thank you for your attention and I close my intervention. Thank you, Pinar. Thank you very much, Fabio, for your presentation. Now I would like to give the floor to Cosimo, who will be presenting the trade policy brief on environment related provisions in regional trade agreements. Please, Cosimo, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you, Pinar. So my name is Cosimo Bezani and I'm a trade policy analyst in the trade and market division of FAO and I'm a co-author to the brief on agri-pesa with Eduna de Vicholi and Jose Solorzano Lopez. Before presenting you the main points discussed in this policy brief, I would like to inform you that this document is based on a much broader FAO publication that will be soon released and that we will have the honor to discuss more in-depth doing the IIST sustainability hub in Abu Dhabi, which will take place at the margins of MC-13 on the 28th of February. In a nutshell, this policy brief discusses what we defined ag-ear-pesa or those environmental-related provisions that are linked to the agriculture, fishery or forestry sectors. Why discussing this topic? Well, because more and more we are aware of the fact that trade can have an impact on the environment and that the agriculture, fisheries and forestry sectors need a healthy environment to strive. But of course, depending on how they are managed, they can also have positive or negative impacts on it. Now, we know that since the establishment of the WTO Rejoint with Agreements or RTAs have become a common option to liberalize trade. RTAs have also expanded rapidly in terms of regulatory coverage, making that a reference to sustainable development and including provisions linking the environment to the agriculture, fishery and forestry sectors. Ag-ear-pesa. As you can read in the brief, and you will be able to see it more in-depth, the full research will be released, the inclusion of ag-ear-pesa in RTAs has kind of fluctuated somewhat since 1995. But the average number of such provision per agreement has increased steadily. Now, several studies show that RTAs with the ERPs have yielded positive outcomes and there is evidence of significant reductions in agriculture-related greenhouse gases emissions in countries that have signed RTAs with more ag-ear-pesa compared to countries with less ag-ear-pesa in their RTAs. However, this topic is largely unexplored. And whether the inclusion of ag-ear-pesa in RTAs is the appropriate means for improving and expanding the reach of different environmental practices globally is yet to be conferred. We do not know enough yet. And we need to continue researching on it. And this is one of our main messages that we're also including in the policy brief to conduct and promote more research and studies on the impact of RTAs with ag-ear-pesa to pursue policy-level discussions on ag-ear-pesa through, for instance, multilateral processes and to announce in this regard, cooperation at international level. Thank you very much for your attention. I just wanted to say these very simple things. Happy to reply to your questions. And of course, for some of you that will be in Abu Dhabi, see you there. Thank you very much, Cosimo. Now we will hear from Karolina on the policy brief on price transmission. Please, Karolina, to floor is yours. Okay, thank you, Pinar. Could you please load the slide? Okay, so the objective of our policy brief is to answer the question of whether domestic food markets in developing countries respond to changes in international prices. And if so, how quickly? In November, 2023, the FAO food price index declined by nearly 25% from the all-time high reached in March, 2022. However, as global food market prices declined, in many countries, domestic food prices did not follow suit. Domestic food price inflation remained high and in real terms, it exceeded overall inflation in 127 out of 163 countries. The extent to which changes in international prices lead to changes in local prices is called price transmission. And a complete price transmission occurs when the prices of food products sold on domestic and international markets differ only by transportation costs. In practice, however, food prices are imperfectly transmitted between countries, at least in short-term. And this is because markets need time to adjust. This is in particular the case of low-income countries where the impact of changing international prices on their markets is either delayed or very small. And this may be due to several reasons, for instance, trade costs or trade policies, such as import tariffs or import and export restrictions. High trade costs render arbitrage very expensive and may result in partly insulating the domestic markets. The same thing happens when tariffs are very high and export bonds can additionally insulate domestic markets. So in this brief, we use econometrics to carry out an empirical exercise to examine serial price transmission for four countries, Ethiopia, Mali, Peru and South Africa. Our results show that in all four countries, price shocks tend to be incompletely transmitted to domestic markets with significant delays. For example, a change in the world-made market price was transmitted to Peru in 3.7 months, while to Ethiopian market it took as much as 9.2 months. For South Africa, the wheat price took 3.7 months to adjust to change in global markets and for rice market in Mali, it took six months. The key policy challenge that lies ahead is how to strike balance between the needs to protect domestic consumers from external shocks and reaping the benefits from integrating into international markets. Policy actions to address this challenge include, first, improving trade infrastructure and enhancing trade facilitation measures to reduce trade costs, second, in the short run, what is important is to balance policies that promote market integration with measures that can mitigate the negative effects of sudden global market shocks to domestic markets. And finally, what is crucial in the long run is to support trade policies that promote integration into international markets to contribute to improved food security, better nutrition and sustainable economic growth. Thank you. And thank you very much, Karagina, for the presentation. Now, I would like to move to our last speaker today, Vittorio, who will be presenting us the great policy brief on food safety. But before that, I would like to kind of remind you, if you have any questions, please post them on the Q&A module and while doing so, please state your names and institutions. So please, Vittorio, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you, Pinar, and a good day to all the distinguished delegates. I do work in the, as Pinar has presented me, I do work in the Agri-Food System and Food Safety Division, particularly in the Food Safety Group here at FAO. And I'd like to, and I've been contributed with the colleagues in the trade division on this small technical brief on improving food safety to foster trade. I'd like to maybe start off by saying and recognizing the food safety as a key public health priority, right? It's the burden of foodborne disease. It's still very, very high and very, very high, particularly in some regions of the world. So protecting consumers will go through also ensuring that the safe that we eat all as consumers is safe. So that's for me, so the essential prerequisite. Then of course, food safety eats an integral part in achieving food and nutrition security. We used to say that if food is not safe, we cannot consider it food. So that's another important element that to making sure that we can achieve adequate food security for all the global population, we need to make sure that food safety is there. And last but not least, food safety is important for livelihoods. Food safety is essential for trade. We know and you know very well how food safety eats very important in some trade negotiation, how food safety requirements play a role in international trade. So in that aspect, in that aspect, if food safety also has a key component in terms of making sure that countries can access market and can access international trade. In this respect, we do have a framework as you all know an international framework which is set by the joint FWHO Codex Alimentarius, which provides international standards and guidelines on food safety, which are the food safety benchmark under the WTO-SPS agreement. And so we do have a framework that allow us to make sure that on the one hand, we protect consumer health and on the other hand, we facilitate an harmonized trade flow. In the brief, as you may have read, we have flagged some potential issues that we are seeing in the word of food safety and with relevance to trade, but we are also trying to offer some solutions. So not only posing problems or issues but also come forward with a positive attitude of some solutions. And we believe at FL we know what actions needs to be taken to make sure that we can afford a food supply safe for everyone at the same time and having that not being a barrier to trade but quite to the contrary, being something that supports trade. For us, as you may have read, it all has to start at national level. We need to make sure that at national level, there are food safety capacities, national food controls system that are able to ensure an adequate safe food supply for the national domestic market. And eventually that will be essential then to also go to international market. We do then of course also need an intergovernmental and multistakeholder engagement that happens also at international level. And that's where, for example, a platform like the Codex Alimentarius, it's a unique forum where countries, member states can actually come together, agree, discuss on standards there, becomes then as we said benchmark for international trade agreements. For those standards though, to be recognizable, agreed and supported by all, I think the fundamental aspect has to be that they need to be based on solid sound science. And so we at FAO together with WHO, we provide these joint scientific assessments that hopefully provide that sort of neutral platform on which then the standards can be built. We do provide scientific advice on a number of issues from chemical hazards to microbiological issues to more ad hoc type of issues, but we really covered the whole spectrum of food safety issues to make sure that again, our advice can provide a solid basis for the standard setting development process. And last but not least, we all know that while the public sector is key because provides that sort of official control framework that needs to happen at country and international level. At the same times, the private sector is the one really involved in the food production and most of the time in the marketing of food. So there needs to be that sort of cross cutting collaboration between public and private sector, making sure that the rules of the games are clear for everybody and there is a framework where those different players can everybody can play their role. Moving forward, I believe it is important that some of the new issues that we are seeing coming in food safety, we stay on top of that. And we at FAO, we try to do that. We have also a program on Foresight whereby we look at emerging issues in food safety and we try to provide an advice to Codex members and to members in general that it's fit for purpose and also a future proof. So we are aware of the issues that are emerging and we try to have a proactive advice. We also support a lot countries in terms of capacity development, making sure that they have the food safety knowledge that is needed to engage in some of these international dialogues that are happening, for example, at WTO, but also at Codex and making sure that country, there is really a truly international participation in some of these discussions. So we do help and support at different level. And of course, we are always happy to provide additional support as need be. And again, recognizing that food safety is not a static attribute. It's something that is evolving with the time and these times as we all know are time of challenges. So we need to also making sure that we are still able to provide an advice and a support that it's really helpful for the members. I'll stop here in the interest of time, but of course, if there are any questions, I'm happy to try and respond them. Over to you, Pinar, thanks. Thank you very much, Victoria. Actually, we are almost at the end of our session, but let me check whether we have any questions pending in the Q&A module. Please post your questions to the Q&A module if you have in any case. It seems not to be the case. Oh, wait. I think we have one question. OK. So we have one question in the Q&A module on fisheries. So this question will be to you, Oden. I'm reading it. The criteria of major fishing area is being used now in the fisheries negotiations at the WTO. Can FAO elaborate more in what these areas are and measures? How were they established? And what are the real borders between one and another area? This is a question from the permanent mission of El Salvador in Geneva. OK. Regarding the design and demarcation of the fisheries areas, these have been developed by FAO in close consultation with our members and with national and regional authorities. We use them internally in FAO for reporting purposes, statistical purposes only, to report on activities and catches and economic activities, et cetera. But in particular, of catches in those areas. But I would not go beyond that. So the areas are instruments in order to report and communicate catches finding, taking place in those areas. But for example, for FAO, we are not going beyond the statistical reporting when we use those areas, of course. If I could understand a little bit more the question, the background for the question and why you expected me to say, in particular, of how this could be better to use, for example, and how we can communicate more and better the activities in terms of catches that are taking place within these areas. But again, it's not areas that have been decided by FAO alone, designed together for reporting purposes, statistical purposes, together with the members of FAO and those that are operating in those areas, of course. Thank you very much, Odin. I don't see any questions. And we are running over time, actually. So I must close the Q&A session, this short Q&A session. But if you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to reach out to us. And we will be happy to follow up on them in due course. So let me wrap up the session right now. Excellencies, distinguished delegates, participants, and your colleague, we would like to express my sincere gratitude to our colleagues from Rome, who dedicated their time today to be with us. I would also like to thank our colleagues in FAO's Marcus and Trade Division and in the Geneva office for organizing this session. Last but not least, we would like to thank your participants for taking your time and joining the session. Before closing the session, I would like to take this opportunity to announce some upcoming work on our site. The new editions of the two of the FAO flagship reports will be published this year. The first one is the 2024 edition of the State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture, known as SOFIO 2024. And it will be released around June. And this year's edition will be on blue transformation and blue transformation in action. And as George mentioned in the very beginning, the 2024 edition of the State of Agricultural Commodity Markets, known as SOCO 2024, will be released in September. The theme of this edition will be food, trade, and nutrition policy approaches for healthy diets. While we will be starting our FAO in Geneva Agriculture Trade Talks and FAO in Geneva Fisheries Trade Talks for 2024 following MC-13, next week on Tuesday, 30th of January, we are organizing an event on COP28 outcomes, addressing climate change through agri-food system transformation at 3 PM Geneva time. The invitation has been already distributed. However, should you need further information on registration, please do not hesitate to reach out to us via email. We would also like to inform you that the trade policy briefs presented today will be soon published in all six official UN languages. And we will be distributing those with you in due course. I would like to thank you once again for your participation. And I wish you all a very nice day. Thank you very much.