 National Organization Partners, Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen, dear participants. I would like to welcome you to this FAO Geneva Agricultural Trade Talks. For those who don't know me, my name is Dominique Bourgeois and I'm the Director of the FAO Liaison Office in Geneva and I will try to moderate today's event. This is the fifth Geneva Agricultural Trade Talks event of 2022 and I would like to flag that this series is co-organized with the FAO Market and Trade Division. Our objective is to share information on new development topics at the intersection of trade and agriculture. We have a series of events planned throughout the year. I would like to thank you for taking the time to attend our meeting today, given that it is a very busy time and there is even a meeting of the Committee on Agriculture and this is very busy, especially in view of the upcoming WTO 12th Ministerial meeting which is scheduled to take place in 10 days from now. So we greatly appreciate your support and interest in FAO's work and are appreciative of your participation in today's event. By now you must all be experts in Zoom meetings but allow me to share some details regarding the logistics and housekeeping for this virtual session. You are invited, as always, 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 remain. The 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 and powerpoint presentation that will be used today. The event is scheduled to last for one hour, one hour and a half and we have reserved some time towards the end of the webinar for comment and intervention. If you wish to intervene, please let us know using the Q&A module and not the chat box. So that's all for the housekeeping and I would like to take a moment to present FAO's work, today's topic and our speakers. As you may know, FAO supports members' efforts 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 tables. In this period FAO in Geneva agricultural trade talks are based on what we call a three eyes approach informal interactive and inspirational. Today's topic is digital tools for agri-food trade, taking stock of progress and key issues for adoption. This topic closely relates to the WTO trade facilitation agreement, which as you know entered into force in February 2017. bureaucratic delays and red tape pose a burden for moving goods across borders for traders. Trade facilitation, which is a simplification, modernization and harmonization of export and import processes has therefore emerged as an important issue for the world trading system. The system is important for trading goods in general, but it is crucial for trade in agricultural products in particular. Agricultural products, as you know, are often perishable and could also be crucial to ensure adequate and nutritious food to consumers around the world. If trade in agricultural products simplifies and ended expeditiously, food waste can be avoided. In turn, the value chain becomes more efficient and profitable for the private sector. There are only good arguments for implementing trade facilitation measures in the agri-food value chain and other digital tools. Our presenters today will provide further details and suggest policy options for all these tools can be implemented. First, we'll have our colleague Misha Tripoli, who is an economist in the market and trade division at FAO at Watering World. Prior to joining the market and trade division, Misha worked in the FAO regional office for Europe and Central Asia in Budapest and as an economist in the United Nations World Food Program. He holds both master's and bachelor's degrees from Clark University in Massachusetts, U.S. We will then have Ms. Nellie Adjouz with the director of trade policy and business development at Freshvelle, Europe, the European Fruit and Vegetable Association. Since 2020, she's further leading in parallel, something called Shade, the Southern Hemisphere Association of Fresh Fruit Exporters, which represents the nine leading trade associations of Southern Hemisphere fruit-producing countries. She further works as consultant and trainer on market access and capacity building projects for the International Trade Center. Ms. Adjouz holds a postgraduate master's degree from the College of Europe in European Interdisciplinary Studies, as well as a master's degree from the Goethe University in Frankfurt in political science and media. With Dan F. Mr. Craig Atkinson, who is the founder-director of Lex Merca International Trade, a consultant who has been working also as a consultant, who is working as a consultant with the United Nations International Trade Center and with a fellow with the Stanford Vienna Translative Technology Law Forum. Before joining the UN in 2012, Craig began his career in commercial diplomacy with the Australian Trade Commission and the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service. He also served as a consultant for the Commonwealth Secretariat and in the private sector. So after this rather long introduction, apologies, we'll now hear from our colleague Misha. And as I mentioned earlier, please post any question in the Q&A module and we'll pass your question to the presenter so that they can react. So thank you very much. And Misha, the floor is yours. Thank you so much Dominique. Let me just share my screen. All right. I think my presentation should be accessible. Thanks again so much for the opportunity to be here today. As mentioned, I'm coming from the FAO headquarters at the Markets and Trade Division. We're over the last four to five years or so. We've been looking specifically at the role of digital technologies in facilitating trade. And so today I would like to share some ongoing research that we're doing, which quite frankly, we often come and look at the idea really came from looking at the role, the opportunity of digital trade facilitation and thought to take a step back and look at really how countries are progressing and what types of steps countries can take to start scaling some of these measures up. So today I'll just be speaking very briefly about outlining the challenges and talking about a very at a high level some of the solutions and focusing a bit on the progress and some steps for scaling up. So I start with the challenges just because I'm a firm believer in making sure that solutions address a challenge. And so I think it's a good place to start just very quickly to sort of set the context. Before doing that, I also think it's important to just to highlight the importance of trade as a contributor to food security. And really all four dimensions as probably most of us that are attending this already know, but it's important to highlight both in terms of certainly on the availability side, but also on the access side in terms of its role and as a source of helping to generate farm incomes. Moving on to point two, we often hear when we talk about digital trade facilitation and trade in general is the high cost. Costs we hear quite a bit. And really quite frankly we have a changing landscape where we have a changing landscape where we have lower tariffs and higher and higher costs from non tariff measures. So just see if I can remove this. Okay, there you go. Many of which are rooted from let's say many of which are related to how information and data are shared. And so this is the first point. And so in building off that, oftentimes we hear about how trade is lack some efficiency, transparency and traceability. And this is because trade is really a complex. The trade transaction is a complex process. You have numerous entities involved. You have traditionally a number of paper documents that have to be recycled and duplicated as they're passed from one entity to another, one party to the other. Oftentimes, clearances are done by humans. So there's a number of redundancies in this process. And secondly is that traceability is a key issue. Oftentimes it exists. Sometimes it's insufficient. And many times we lack an audible production history for food safety and sustainability criteria. And really all these dimensions are really all data problems. And so how can digital technologies help address these underlying problems? Well, trade, a lot of trade apart from moving the physical good is about data information. And that data information helps protect human plant and animal health, our relevance at the agri-food sector, which we're obviously talking about ensuring that product quality and helping facilitate trade. And really on a basic level, digital technologies can help digitalize and automate the collection, the analysis and exchange of that data throughout the chain and through trade processes. And so now, just very briefly, I'm going to just talk about three main groups of types of solutions. And the first is traceability systems. Really essential for trade, particularly for all agri-food trade, but particularly for livestock trade, where it's often a determinant of accessing global markets. And too often we see that in some cases, they're lacking, missing in many parts of the world, either in paper or electronic format. So this is an important issue. And digital technologies provide really, I think, great opportunity. And so there's many different ways of different types of underlying technologies that can be used to create such a system. But ultimately, the key is to store that data and those records electronically. And so this here is an example of a digital supply chain that is meant to be really meant to optimize traceability and really make it the most efficient supply chain possible. And I'll talk just very briefly about what that means. So it's a supply chain, a digital supply chain where you can record, store, share, monitor and analyze data, different data points in the chain. So as the product moves across the chain, product attributes are collected and stored and provides that traceable transaction history on how that product was produced and how it was cared for throughout the process. You have an underlying shared database or database that's used to exchange that information where actors can register that data that's collected, whether it's from handheld devices, IoT devices, remote sensing, what have you, can be done in many different ways in varying degrees of technology, but it can be used to populate, can be used to populate trade documents as well as help with regulatory compliance as well as consumer awareness. And so on the bottom here, you have data analysis, which you can use predictive analytics to be able to optimize farm output, farm management, as well as monitoring tools for things like disease outbreaks, fraud, non-compliance with food standards. And so you have this automated reports that are produced based on the data that's collected. And so this is just, this is a bit far-reaching, but just to give the idea of the potential and something that I think is an important contributor is traceability systems. Moving on, much of the innovation in digital trade facilitation lies with the electronic documents and those exchange systems. So e-certification and electronic docs improve the efficiency by eliminating paper, reducing fraud, enabling faster border procedures, all of which help reduce costs, that's the idea. And so here you have two different examples, e-fiddle, which I think probably we're all familiar with, electronic phytosanitary certificates. You have here a centralized exchange system where you have importing and exporting countries using their own systems that connect with the hub, and you can send information back and forth. Here on the right hand side, you have something that's more set up as a shared or distributed ledger, a blockchain, where you have all the different actors participating, having the same transaction history, which is advantageous, particularly for automation when you'd like to use smart contracts for automating things like payments and approvals and so on. So third group is digital trade services. Quite a lot of work has been done on digital trade finance. Again, very similarly, most often times we see that using blockchain provides that single ledger where it can auto-execute the settle of payments in real time upon the delivery of goods, which is quite beneficial for producers and sellers, helping to free up cash flow and work in capital and helping them better manage their business. Here you have two of the main types of trade finance, open account and letters of agreement, which overall just moving to a digital system really helps reduce the time of doing, clearing that paperwork, doing that paperwork from weeks to a matter of days or hours. I won't go into more detail because I'm not happy to talk about that in the discussion a little bit more if it's of interest, but ultimately it helps reduce the transaction costs, reduce the length of payment terms and helps exporters save money, but also enables lenders to supply more trade finance to those that are underserved. Lastly is electronic cargo booking. Quite an interesting area. This is two examples, two companies not just to flag them really as interesting innovations that are ongoing that can really help make the transportation management much more efficient and transparent, which brings obviously efficiencies throughout the chain. How much progress has been made? Here we're looking at the United Nations Global Digital and Sustainable Trade Facilitation Survey. This data comes from respondents from government officials, covers up to 58 trade facilitation measures. Here we'll be looking at one of the groups which has two subgroups. The first is on paperless trade. This data is from 2021. You can see that this is looking at what stage implementation is in. You can see the different colors here on the bottom. You can see quite interestingly that the greatest progress is made with automated custom systems and electronic submission of customs declarations as well as internet connection and trade control agencies, which you can see about 90 percent of countries have made some efforts have at least are in the pilot stage of implementing these. These are both in terms of full implementation in terms of engagement in general. The most progress has been made. When we look at the next group and we look at the specific measures that have articles from the WTO's trade facilitation agreement, we can see the electronic payment of customs duties and fees, which is article 7.2, which at least 80 percent of countries have piloted. That's something that's ongoing. Of course, the electronic single windows, which has made quite a bit less progress, which is reporting in at here at about 75 percent of countries have at least in the pilot stage, but you can see implementation is still around, full implementation around 25 percent. As you work your way down on the last two, you can see that much more progress is needed, particularly for electronic certificates, the application issuing of certificates of origin as well as customary funds. When we look regionally, we can see it. When we look at the regional average of the level of implementation, it shows that the Pacific Islands, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia all tend to be below the global average, which is in these blue dots. I always find this is particularly interesting to look at the electronic single window system and see where countries stand. They certainly stand below, but the level of implementation by measure, so similar trends as the previous slide, but highlights really that the world has more work to do. That's again on single windows, as well as on certificates of origin and customs refunds. When we look at the second subgroup, the cross-border trade, this is looking at cross-border paperless trade. This is looking at the laws and regulations for electronic transactions, as well as the recognized certification authorities, which are really basic building blocks to enable the exchange of electronic trade documents and data. As well as additional measures that are really looking at the exchange of those specific documents. Here you can see them here on the left-hand side. Overall, we see that the implementation levels of cross-border paperless trade are quite low, naturally, so 70% of countries have taken steps to establish laws and regulations, which is really the first step. About 30% are fully implemented. Less than 60% of countries have recognized certification authorities in place. This partially explains why some of the full electronic exchange of documents is limited for things like SPS you have here, electronic SPS certificates, as well as certificates of origin, which typically range in less than 10%. Again, by region, we see similar trends in measures by region, so we start here with the Pacific Islands, and it sort of works its way out, sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and so on. I think the keynote is really the Southeast Asia and East Asia, which has made some of the most progress, obviously along with developed economies, and interesting enough for electronic SPS certificates. The last two slides that I'll talk about briefly is how we can scale up digital trade facilitation and what those steps could be. I think, as mentioned in the intro, I think it's important to start with the WTO's trade facilitation agreement. It's quite interestingly, it has very similar objectives as digitalization. We're looking at things like efficiency, transparency, lowering costs, reducing friction, expediting shipments, so really the first step is to make sure that those procedures are followed, because ultimately it's an important first step in achieving digital trade. And secondly, talk about making a plan. Seems very basic, I know, why would I put this, but this really requires a political commitment, a political will, it's a long journey, and you can see that through many countries that start this process. And so careful planning should be made in terms of assessing investment costs, understanding which type of documents you'd like to move to electronic format, making sure we look at opportunities to create economies of scale in terms of creating data exchange systems that are multi-use and things like that. So, obviously carefully, it has to be thought out. The next step would be on updating trade legislation, very important. Just here, just quickly mention some great tools is the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, great model laws on things like e-signature, electronic transfer records, electronic commerce, really sort of the foundation building blocks. They also have great assessment guides for legal readiness. And so I think these are, this is really the building block and really takes a long time and is really quite extensive. Something like, we've learned that something like phytosanitary is not just phytosanitary legislation, it can move into customs, it can move into IT legislation. It can cover quite a large area. Next would be looking at simplifying trade facilitation procedures, conducting a business process analysis, really important in terms of understanding already before what is the baseline, what types of inefficiencies exist in trade facilitation procedures and how they can be improved. And that's an important assessment to do in taking stock as we work to upgrade a system. Obviously building out those IT system requirements that are needed to be able to exchange certificates and also thinking about how they can be interoperable with other systems. I think this is a really important point in a couple dimensions. One is in terms of making sure that EFIDO, electronic single windows and what other systems can interact with one another. And really I think working in a way to understand what are some of the basic technology requirements that are needed to create interoperable systems. I think that's really important to do because you don't want to build systems and then be stuck with, how do we make them interact and have to revise and fix. So I think thinking about that from the beginning is a key thing to highlight. And probably something that should be done, I think, in a multilateral way, in a collaborative way. Last points to mention really quickly are obviously making sure you have stakeholder buy-in, building that business case. We want this to benefit users. Thinking about things like digital trade standards and rules, really important up-and-coming issue and not only for national governments but also for the multilateral international community and thinking about what that means as this area of work evolves. Last two things to mention is expanding. EFIDO has been, I would say, tremendously successful thus far. And it's really, we have to think about how we can scale that up to other types of SPS certifications, whether it's health or sanitary certificates, and as well as building capacity. We want users to be able to use these systems and use them actively and effectively. And so there's a number of steps that can be taken in terms of building human capital, education, as well as improving digital infrastructure and our ports and so on. Thank you very much. I'll stop here. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed, Misha, for this very informative presentation, challenges and opportunities for adoption of digital tools for EFIDO trade. I think the example you used, they were quite diverse and very telling and showing really the potential of the along the various streams. And then I found also your presentation on the progress made very interesting, pointing to some gaps on thematic aspects, as well as, of course, on some geographic progress that are, I would say, to say the least uneven. And then, of course, finishing with the issues for adoption and giving some ideas on how to scale up. So, thank you very much, Misha, for that. I'm sure there will be questions that will be coming up, and so we'll get back to you. So I would like now to move to our second presenter today, Ms. Nemi Adjou. So, Nemi, I'm very pleased to be here with us today and I'm pleased to give you the floor. Oh, you can see my screen. Yes, very well. Okay, wait, I'm starting the presenter mode. Like this. Exactly. Okay, perfect. So, thank you very much for this invitation. I'm feeling very honored to be part of your trade talks today, especially because the trade facilitation agreement accompanies my work since quite a long time and it always comes up again and again. And I often have the feeling that if you go away from the multilateral sphere, there's a lot of work to be done also to raise the awareness on the different implications it has for different agricultural trade. So, I have the honor, Dominique, you introduced me. I think I need to explain it a bit more. And so I'm sharing my time between different roles, which are all kind of interconnected. So as Dominique rightly said, I'm working particularly on areas such as customs, border controls, operation, trade facilitation, and of course digitalization. And I'm sharing my time between Freshfell, which is the European Food and Vegetable Association, and based in Brussels. And I'm going to come to that in a second with more detail, but I'm at the same time also leading an organization which is called The Shave, the Southern Hemisphere Association for Fresh Food Exporters, which represents the Southern Hemisphere food producing countries, amongst them Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, New Zealand, Peru, South Africa, Uruguay, and Zimbabwe just recently joined. And so I'm really having a holistic perspective on the global food trade evolution at the moment. Additionally, I'm also the coordinator of a coalition called Global Youth Coalition, which is trying to address in a common approach current cost hikes and supply chain disruptions. So I would like this opportunity to give you a bit of overview of the sector to date. So where are we right now in the fresh produce food and vegetable trade? And what are the current challenges? What we have been basically doing with e-faito and where we see still main hurdles, what happened, the benefits, and so on. I also would like to use this momentum as well to give two or three more points to the work agenda, which really would help to facilitate trade in the future. And where I think this is a good forum to share these ideas and these discussions we're having in the sector since a while. So just in a nutshell that you have the housekeeping words. So Fresh Well Europe, European Fresh Produce Association, the beauty of this organization is that we're representing the entire supply chain. So we have producers, growers, traders, importers, exporters. So we have quite a holistic perspective in the European market. And we look at around about 68 million tons of production, an annual turnover of around about 200 billion euros. And Fresh Produce in Europe is mainly traded intra-EU. So we have a lot of turnaround in the EU 27 countries. But we also export 7.1 million tons to around about 140 destinations and import around about 14.5 million tons, which are mainly products which are not necessarily produced in the European Union. For the Shave countries, as I said, it's the nine leading southern hemisphere countries which represents around about 25% of global food trade, which is today 12.8 million tons, which are traded globally with a market value of 17.8 billion US dollar. And here with the organization, we're really looking into trade facilitation, but more on the supply chain crisis recently, sustainability, and obviously educational trade. So why I'm sharing this with you, and why didn't I choose one of the organizations is because I would like to give you a bit of a holistic overview where we are right now. The food and vegetable industry is a traditionally very, very fragmented industry. So we have 200 origins, we have 200 destinations. And at the spot, you have really a very fragmented sector with a lot of participants in the supply chain. So traditionally, this is resulting in a low margin environment where a lot of the incomes have to be split along the chain, and the distribution is often very difficult. And we have been doing relatively well, but the pandemic has been challenging our sector massively because obviously we had a lot of waiting times at ports. We had customs challenges. Ports in China, for example, are a good example where additional customs procedures, control procedures have been delaying the process. And in our case, it is really a perishable product, which needs very swift operation to ensure that we're not using the quality of the product, that we're not endangering food safety and these kind of elements. A major topic in this context is as well the element of sustainability. Sustainability is something the sector is basically operating since 20, 30, 40 years because if we don't preserve our environment, we will not be able to produce. And I think our main challenge is a bit to change the narrative in that regard because I think we have the beauty of having a product which is healthy, which is contributing to public health and which is at the top of any kind of produce which is sustainably produced. So we are spearheading here amongst the agri food commodities. So what we see at the moment is a very, very difficult period and I'm happy Misha mentioned food security because we've been really running in, we're really having a very difficult time with the current supply chain crisis. So we see cost hikes, we see increases of container prices around 150 to 400 percent. We see shipping lines and their reroutings, not stopping in ports, they used to stop and traders are waiting globally with their product in the ports to get picked up. We see also on the land transport an increase of costs, 80 percent in air freight, we see 100 percent increase of fertilizer costs and 100 percent in wood pellets and others. So this is just a snapshot. Yes, it concerns everyone. I think it's a particularly difficult situation for fruits and vegetables, hence the fragmentation because there's no global leader, no global leader company, but really a sector which is operated everywhere, anywhere, in any kind of size. So we look today at an increase of 10 billion costs only for 2022 roundabout in Europe, 4 billion roughly only for logistics for southern hemisphere, exporters and traders. North America, we see cost hikes of roundabout 25,000 percent of containers and in ACP countries, 86 percent of the producers already can feel this issue and are rethinking currently how they're going to conduct the business. So I think this is very important to understand as a background because we are in a very difficult situation and we're trying now to coordinate also our ways out because we're working on the self-responsibility of the sector. So as such, I had the pleasure to accompany the development of the EFITO hub and the EFITO project since 2015 as a member of the industry advisory group. I have been placing both organization in this industry advisory group because I really believe that we need a global coordination from all sides. If we look at the benefits, there are clear benefits and they have been very clear from the beginning. For us, it's a very, very important tool in this very fragmented world to call paperless and to have an insured easy and time transmission and a safe transmission. We had so many occasions. Brexit is just the last point where we see that the digital transmission is the only solution to really facilitate in-time trade without any kind of delays. We have been really seeing that during the COVID-19 period, there has been really an opening amongst the different governments to facilitate the access to really reinforce the usage of the hub in order to ensure that the fighter sanitary certificates are arriving in time from country to country while career services were not working, air freight was not working because what normally is done is that the shipments are going on the water or going into the truck or the train but the FITO is just sent after with a career. So having had this situation in COVID-19, we really benefited from the EFITO hub in easy transmission. However, we see that with the end of the pandemic, I'm not sure if we can call this, but there is a wish to return to normal, which is acceptable and understandable, but where we see that a lot of the trade facilitating measures which have been actually beneficial for our sector and also for other agriculture industries have been taken back or taken have been ended by slowly facing out these trade facilitation measures. I'm going to come to this in a second. What we also can see is clearly a cost reduction. So on average, you pay 50 euros for a FITO sanitary certificate and also then for the career services and this means that a lot of money can be saved on the side, especially because we often work with mixed consignments. So one container may have 20 to 50 different FITO sanitary certificates and that is obviously also piling up in money. And of course, if we look at non-compliances and interceptions, 75% of all non-compliances have been resulting in the past from fraudulent or missing certificates. So this is really contributing to a reduction of the loss through interceptions because we are at least the certification has been cleared. Just as a fun fact, so in reality what is happening sometimes the FITO is handed to the exporter, the exporter is giving it to the captain, the captain is carrying it until he's arriving at the importer and then it's cleared at customs. So these are many hands where this is running through. So definitely the sector was there from the beginning and very, very excited about this. So our journey had two different pillars or three different pillars. So basically we have been really trying over the years to build advocacy for the system at EU level in China, in South Africa. So we've been facilitating the contact of the IPPC's steering committee, the steering committee with the South African NPPO to onboard them and to harmonize their efforts. We have been reaching out with IPPC to China and their coordinator to really enhance the onboarding in this level. And we have been also working a lot at EU level to really foster the onboarding of this with the member state. So it was really a common effort and we have been doing a lot of advocacy work here. And we secondly have been doing a lot of outreach with the industry advisory group as well as on our own for the sector to really explain what is the system, how the system can be used, how people can onboard, how this all is working out and we have been working as well with the Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation on these kind of matters. What we see is a, we have a two angle issue a bit. So the system is there, it's working, but it remains very abstract. So you get a lot of information. 2000 certificates have been exchanged. This has been exchanged. Argentina and the US have been exchanging, but it often is unclear who's actually sending it. And we're doing a lot of effort to really put the fruit industry to make use of the system. But there's clearly a gap between public and private sphere. And this is something which we have also seen as a problem with regards to conduct case studies because different than the grain sector where the importer is the exporter. And our key challenge was always to find the right connection to do the testing of the system. So we were always stuck at the point we found an exporter willing to test the system, but then we didn't get the feedback from the importer because all is so small and fragmented that the engagement to test this and to risk some of the elements is very low. And also I think there is a gap between the traders and the NPPO's to really understand and trust each other. So I think traders are sometimes very reluctant to say like, okay, if I don't have the fighter on my hand, I'm a bit worried that it's not going to work out. And a second big element we saw is that in parallel to this really, really great innovation of this hub, which is really welcomed by the sector, we saw a lot of bilateral systems evolving. And that was really contributing to a lot of confusion to a lot of misunderstanding. So is this now a fighter or not? Is this what is this? So we have a connection in the Netherlands with South Africa, we have a connection between Chile and this country. And yes, everybody has the right to set this up. But of course, if you really try to connect here, the world together and make it easy for everyone. And we've been really trying to advocate for this one system. Thirdly, we saw a big problem and we see is still a big problem in some of the key trading parties such as China that could be really improved that we have their stronger onboarding because there's a lot of trade going there and it would very much facilitate if this could be doing. And I know that the Chinese colleagues, they're doing a great job now to really put all the systems together. And thirdly, we had a big, big, big concern with the EU and the Tracer system, because the EU and the Tracer system was the only system where the E-Phyto hub was integrated, but needed an electronic signature to be used. And the implementation of this signature included as well, obviously an onboarding fee, an annual maintenance fee and so on. Where we were a bit concerned that this is a bit in imbalance with other countries who don't require this e-signature. But the EU has been very, very actively working now to solve the issue and to find a solution at least for the generic systems. So this is on the way to be solved. So you see, we've been doing a lot of work on this. And for us, what remains as a priority is really to raise the awareness in the sector and to connect public and private sphere. So from our side, this is really a role model, which needs to be repeated, which can be used also for other certificates and a word on single window. Yeah, I was always, when I started to work for FreshFell a couple of years ago, I thought like the single window in the EU, for example, is already existing. And, you know, only in the process, I realized, okay, it's still in the building and I think we need to really get there and simplify processes. I would like to take a moment as well in this context, because now that I've been sharing this, I've been thinking, okay, what is it actually what would help us and the sector currently and also in the future to really avoid situations as we are right now, where really a lot of industry participants are thinking about quitting are probably not economic viable anymore. So global global trading operations. And we've been like really reflecting in the southern hemisphere as well as in the EU about this. And we realized that there's a lot of data available, which is not made available to trade. So we have a lot of customs data, which is used for internal purposes, but which would be really helped in a way if you would organize it right to make good business decision and avoid certain food security and price issues we're experiencing at the moment. What we need is basically real time data. What we have at the moment is at European level, we can look back three months. So we have data from three months ago, which gives us an indication of trends, but only obviously everything what is real time is better than looking back. And in the southern hemisphere, we do data sharing a week back, so we can look back on certain trade flows. But looking at the current situation, it is very essential that we have real time access, and that we can really use this data and analytics as well to make automated business decisions that we can use to predict the machine learning tools. So to really balance a bit where the trade flows going, a good example when the Ukraine, Russia were started, some of the traders had some analysis tools and they could reroute their shipping and sell it somewhere else and that secured them their income. And this kind of management can be professionalized if we have the customs and real time port data available in an obviously compliant and nonsensitive matter. That same goes for where are vessels going, where are they at the moment, so that we can do advanced planning for shipping, count in the delays, also the transit times are very difficult topic for us in the food sector because 16 days of transit is something different than 20. And it has always an impact on a very sensitive product. And last but not least, it's also relevant for the entire chain. So it's not just where do I sell it or where, so if five ships go into Australia, I'm going to go to another destination, but it's also relevant for those who harvest because they know, okay, if no ship is coming in the next three weeks, I may reorganize my harvest. It's important for cold storage and facility management because they need to know at which time they need how much space and their cold storage. We need to know this for two port logistics, so how many trucks will be needed at which day and where do we have to stock and we have to do the planning. And of course, as well for the inspections and controls to know what kind of capacity is existing. Having said this, great efforts have been done on this. But I think there could be a more unified approach to make this accessible. Dominic, I know my time is up, so I have one last remark. I think a second element and this is something we've been advocating and I think this is the right forum as well to make this a bit understood. And we have a second element and this is the whole bunch of data available for controls. We have an EUDE IMSOC system, for example. And I think if we would use this data, what we get, we could make a much better control policy. We could do a much better phytosanitary policy if we have a more proportional overview of what is coming in, where it's done, how it's done. And we've been actually having a high hope for the IMSOC system doing exactly that. Realizing it's more an administration tool than an analysis tool. And I think there is a big potential for us to enhance the self-responsibility of the trade, to have more predictability, and to understand the scope of the non-compliance is better, and to draw the right conclusions in policy, but also in business decisions. And with that, I leave it here. And thank you. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to explain some of the major elements. Thank you so much, Nelly, for such a great presentation. We will, of course, be sure that presentations are posted on the website so that participants can indeed see it. I think it was very interesting to see it also from the angle of your industry, which, as you say, fragmented and, of course, dealing with highly perishable goods, which makes it even more complex. I think it was interesting to see also that there were some progress that were made even during the COVID time, and that there is a risk now of some going back, and that we need to protect the gains that have been made and built on that, because it's also advantages in terms of costs. I think also your final remarks on the importance of data and real-time data is also very important indeed to support a more sustainable industry. So definitely a very rich presentation. I would like also to invite the presenters to look at the Q&A module, because there has been a number of questions that were addressed to them, so you can elect to either respond sort of in plenary or directly type your response, so just let me know what you prefer. And now I would like to move to our next last speaker, with Craig. Craig, the floor is yours. Thank you Dominique, and I want to say thank you to the FAO for inviting me today. I think all of these presentations are quite complimentary, and I hope I can add a bit of a different but related perspective to what's been said. So my, I have sort of a generic title for my presentation today in the, in calling it digital trade facilitation, but my subtitle I think kind of relates to the perspective that I bring to this discussion. And so I have titled the subtitle is agricultural value chains, people and technology, because what I want to describe today is how digital trade facilitation really relates to the convergence of everything that happens in a value chain and supply chain for agricultural products. This can be both agri food as well as other agricultural outputs. People, you know, people are at the core of everything, whether it be the production of the food, whether it be transportation, value addition, etc. And then technology and technology is something that in terms of agriculture, I've been working in for about a decade now. The beginnings of my work in kind of agri trade space, so to speak, really focusing on reducing waste and loss at earlier stages in the chain. So I'll kind of be integrating my perspectives on agricultural production and value chains into this discussion that's really about trade facilitation and borders. So I'll just give a brief overview of what I'm going to speak about today. So in the first instance, I'm going to look at digital trade facilitation agriculture and kind of provide a bit more of a summary of what's at stake, because I think we really needed to define, you know, what are the what are the opportunities and what are the threats associated with either action or inaction when it comes to implementing trade facilitation measures, especially digital ones. This is a really good segue into actual the meat and potatoes, so to speak, of implementing measures and what that process looks like. I've titled this section of the presentation First Digitized and Digitalized, and I'll unpack those terms a little bit more. The third section of the presentation is called From Digital Infrastructure to Digital Tools, as I note that many in international organizations and in general, so to speak, in agricultural and digital trade facilitation are really emphasizing tools, but I think it's really important to take a step back from tools and look at everything that needs to be done from an organizational institutional perspective in terms of preparing governments as well as the private sector for digital trade facilitation implementation. And then in the fourth and final section of the presentation, I'm going to look at an area that I call pillars of interoperability and the various steps that are required in terms of single window road mapping. We've heard a little bit about single window today, but I will speak more to that. So section one, speaking about what's at stake in terms of digital trade facilitation and agriculture, I think this quote or this this research from UNCTAD, which dates back to 1994 actually, is really poignant because I think it illustrates to everyone kind of what we're dealing with when it comes to coordination and different types of document parties and data elements that are involved in trade transactions. So the UNCTAD data from 1994 basically states that an average customs transaction involves 30 parties, 40 documents, and 200 data elements. And I've described this is forming what you could call a data supply chain, which would be in parallel to the value chain or the supply chain of any product. And in agricultural products or agri trade and agricultural products also involves many other additional compliance documents that you would not necessarily find in a non agri trade product. So these can include sanitary and phytosanitary certificates, SPS, which we've spoken a little bit about today, but it could also relate to certificates of origin, et cetera. And a lot of what's at stake in this space is really related to the fact that and I mentioned that agri food products are many are also perishable and they're sensitive to food loss and waste. And so in this space and what's at stake here is that digital technologies can help reduce fundamentally coordination problems by helping to reduce friction, these are the time and costs at each stage of a product's value chain as it moves through the chain. And this includes cross border transactions. And all of these stakes really kind of they vary by different stakeholders. So it's really important to frame how the stakeholders relate to the various stakes. And these stakeholders can include governments, enterprises of all sizes, and these can be small and formal enterprises and then can be large, formal multinational corporations actually that participate in agricultural value chains, as well as global society, because everyone is a stakeholder in agriculture. And so to kind of map these stakeholder groups onto some of what are the what these stakes are, at the kind of highest level at the international legal level, one of the stakes is a legal issue because any government that has committed to multilateral agreements such as the trade facilitation agreement or regional agreements such as the African continental free trade area are these governments and these government stakeholders are have made obligations that they will implement on a schedule various commitments related to trade facilitation. So there is a legal dimension of this that I think is important to understand. And that's a capacity that relates to government and their and more institutional organizational aspects of the stakes at play. There's also huge socioeconomic stake here and we've touched on this with the other speakers, but this is something that I think I want to reiterate. And this relates all the way to the macro level talking about national economies, but also really looking at the local livelihoods that pertain to both trade costs as well as market access. And so this is interesting because when you look at full implementation of digital trade facilitation measures which I'll speak to in a minute, those digital measures that may go beyond the WTO TFA could reduce costs trade costs by as much as 13% versus only 6.7% at the minimum TFA measures implementation level. So that's an important thing to note. There's also massive environmental and biosecurity stakes at play here with regards to digital trade facilitation implementation and what could or may happen in terms of formal and informal trade and the issues that we face with invasive species and environmental degradation etc. And then there's the more human elements that relate to food safety, human health, food security and humanitarian logistics. So these are the stakes at play and more from a personal note and a lot of my work that I've done in the past kind of connecting the area of food losses and waste and the community of practice I've been involved with with the FAO since 2013. Here I've identified three areas in the in the food supply chain that really relate to where trade and the coordination problems can start to affect the supply and availability of safe and safe food. So these issues really start at the post harvest handling and storage phase and storage can be involved at different stages in the chain. This can be at value addition stages and this really then relates to the area in the chain related to processing and then fourth distribution which is the most connected to trade and trade facilitation. And interestingly enough in Sub-Saharan African countries it's been estimated that 20% of the food waste and loss occurs at the distribution stage. So anything that trade facilitation can do to reduce that figure is very important and that that's at a domestic level. So I don't even know if we have the the distribution food loss and waste figure for for trade. So I also wanted to say a few things here which I think is really important related to trade facilitation implementation as sort of one component of the overall holistic perspective on agritrade and and sectoral competitiveness especially in least developed countries that don't already have a lot of these components of a holistic agritrade sector in place. So these are everything from the business environment and the the strategies that go into designing agrifood sectors and agritrade sectors in general. Further along to the areas of trade support and trade facilitation access to finance because trade facilitation doesn't doesn't exist in a vacuum. These measures that governments are seeking to enact and and the modernization of their existing systems it doesn't it doesn't happen without other key services being provided to sectors and to the firms that exist in that in those sectors and one of those other key areas further down kind of the chain as enterprises become competitive in domestic and international markets is also the access and transfer of technology and skills. So I think it was really important for me to highlight that everything we're talking about in terms of digital and trade facilitation in general it doesn't doesn't exist on its own and another keynote that I think is important before I get into some other areas related to digital trade facilitation implementation is differentiating between the ideas and the concepts of digitization versus digitalization. So digitization really focuses on the conversion of analog sources so you could talk about paper-based documents into a digital form that's that can be read or processed by a computer so this is the idea of sounds a bit redundant but saying electronic or digital data this is very different from the idea of digitalization which is sort of what do you do when you've digitized inputs and digitalization really relates to transforming these inputs these digital inputs into digital outputs or at least into intermediate forms that the humans and computers can work with more readily. So the definition of digitalization is the use of digital sources of data or documents for process improvement such as automation. And so section two kind of moves along from looking at these stakes and kind of these ideas and these concepts about digitization and digitalization really gets into how does this converge with the implementation process that governments are subject to because of their international obligations as well as their own needs in terms of improving the competitiveness of agri of agri trade at at national subnational regional levels whatever it may be. And so I've entitled this section of the presentation first digitized then digitalized because I think that really provides a nice summary of what governments are kind of faced with when it when it comes to the steps involved with implementing measures for digital trade facilitation. So and this is not just something we can say is implementation is a general term it really needs to be broken down into the the different processes and groups of measures that are involved as well as the stakeholders. So the different measures that are at play really relate to everything from enhancing that institutional arrangement and cooperation to establishing transparency mechanisms implementing efficient trade formalities and frameworks for formalities and the development of paperless trade systems. And this follows a natural progression and and a building as you move up the so-called ladder from the institutional and and more organizational aspects to more of the I would call the technical and the the elements that relate to the underlying requirements for a a cross-border paperless trading system and I'll get into the definitions of that. And in all of this you have people and you have stakeholders from various entities and organizations so this can be across government so government agencies from customs agriculture health etc to policymakers that are involved in more of the legislative environment and it also includes all the private stakeholders which we've discussed a little bit about the intersection today between sort of the government side of trade facilitation implementation and the needs of industry so these are everything from the producers to the traders transportation service providers banks insurance companies consumer groups and civil society at large. So I also thought it was kind of important if we're talking about the digital measures for trade facilitation but also kind of define what paperless trade is so UNESCO provides a really good definition here paperless trade can be defined as trade taking place on the basis of electronic communications including exchange of trade related data and documents in electronic form and so the development of paperless and cross-border paperless trading systems in the cross-border context this really relates to mutual recognition and mechanisms for exchange between governments and we can call these two groups paperless and cross-border paperless measures as fulfilling that area of digital trade facilitation generally this all requires a legal technical basis and it's also important to think about the different variety of measures also relate to different contexts so these can be measures that support business to business communications and facilitation business to government which is the classic model what we think about in terms of trade facilitation or government to business for that matter and then the area which is becoming more important as we're following that path from the institutional at a internal level towards government level towards paperless measures is the idea of government to government and this is the idea of cross-border paperless this can be national coordination within a country between the various agencies but also communications between national governments I think that's a critical aspect when we get to some of the discussions that I'll bring up around interoperability between systems that are involved in paperless trade so breaking down that area of trade facilitation more broadly and paperless and cross-border paperless measures there are numerous different types of measures and some of these you would consider falling into the scope of the multilateral arrangement under the trade facilitation agreement so as we can see under the paperless measures category e-payment of customs duties and fees is one of the measures for paperless trade that is mandated and committed to by members of the WTO as well as this concept of electronic single window system which I will speak a little bit more to in the coming slides and then especially related to agriculture at the cross-border paperless measures level the certificate of origin exchange between countries is of a critical importance to note as well as SPS certificate exchange between countries and this is also sort of reflected in some of the agricultural trade facilitation specific measures that are not necessarily digital although we can see here when it comes to electronic application and issuance of SPS certificates this has been a category of measure that's been included in the UN global survey on digital and sustainable trade facilitation as well as the importance of special treatment for perishable goods at border crossings which relates to TFA article 7.9 and I want to speak a little bit more to we've been we've been mentioning single window systems but what is a single window system so single window systems refer to the variety of different systems platforms and environments that exist and they're not only for trade they allow parties involved in trade and transport to large standardized information and documents within a single entry point to fulfill all import export and transit related regulatory requirements and in some context the non-trade single window systems this can be other types of regulatory requirements or even port systems more at the transportation level are focused possibly only on aspects that relate to transportation and this requires that there is some level of communication exchange between the variety of different single window and other more basic systems such as the more basic customs automation systems and the core thing that really like defines single windows is that if information is electronic then individual data elements should only be submitted once and into one system and the advanced examples of these systems and the ones that I've been focusing on in some of my work relate to the automation of rules and what can be called computational law and some some spheres and that have also full data processing functionality and here's a little example of a single window system and it really illustrates how it's not just one system it's a network of networks so to speak that's typically connected to the internet as well and each of these systems have to be able to communicate and interoperate and so this is an interesting element of when we're considering the legal aspects and interoperability in those regards between jurisdictions and and systems we also jurisdictions we also have to think about what is the interoperability between the systems by which these these various governments these governments and these actors and industry use to ensure that we have seamless supply chains and communication between all the actors and so the third section here in the presentation I really wanted to like discuss as well as like talking about the idea of and the differentiation between digital infrastructure and digital tools so everything that we've kind of spoken about today really talks about the idea of institutional formalization and coordination but all of that everything that's done in terms of institutions and people must also be reflected in developing a what we would call a digital public infrastructure this is the back end and everything from a technical perspective that helps the realization and the opera operationalization of of what has been discussed and formalized between people and organizations and so whether digital tools are developed by the public sector itself consortia or industry all these tools are predicated on the existence of back end government network systems knowledge infrastructure etc and the availability of data sources I think this is a key differentiating point because many times we'll speak about digital tools but we'll really forget that without infrastructure there can't be digital tools and another thing as well which I think is important which we don't really differentiate very frequently in the trade facilitation space but I think it's key to kind of always wear this hat and think about the differences between the different types of tools that are predicated by this digital public infrastructure the first of these tools are trade information tools and these are the tools that really emphasize market information and decision making this is before a transaction ever occurs and and I think that these tools are from what I've seen these are critical for really helping firms understanding what opportunities exist and being able to overcome the tariff and non-tariff barriers that exist and getting that information about rules and regulations and and where to find market information business intelligence etc and these are these are tools that are enshrined also in the trade facilitation agreement under article 1.2 and access to information although it does not specifically state that they have to be as advanced as a trade information portal these can be simple websites so thinking about one class of digital tools we can think about trade information but what I think the main conversation the point of conversation today is focused on trade operations tools and these are the ones that really focus on transactional and enforcement from the government side and compliance from from industry and actors involved in the in agricultural value chains and one of the ones that the digital tools in this space but it sort of blurs the it kind of blurs between digital infrastructure so to speak and digital tools is the idea of the electronic single window system which I've spoken to so saying all of that it's important that governments and and and regional bodies as well as the multilateral institutions understand and think about the pillars of interoperability between digital infrastructure digital tools and among these tools and all of the users of these of these systems it's important that they think about pillars of interoperability at a at a first instance and how this relates to also the road mapping for the deployment and design of of of national single window systems and so this all really begins at the legal framework level and as Misha spoke to earlier this really is critical for for domestic electronic transaction frameworks and various frameworks for electronic signatures documents electronic commerce to be in place in the first instance and this is really at a at a domestic level but it's it's critical for the for the international opera interoperability and the legal interoperability so to speak and the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law provides excellent model laws that countries can use as a template to enshrine a domestic framework for the that underlies electronic transacting also organizational so the idea of digital identity and legal entities and and different ways to ensure that there is sufficient business recognition of business structures as well as other forms of entities including government entities it's also important to look at the semantic infrastructure and ways of thinking about interoperability this is the format and meaning so meaning so to speak of inputs that these systems use so this can relate from everything to the data models and standards of the world customs organization and its customs data model to the UNC fact messaging standards etc the the private oasis standards for digital documents such as the universal business language and xml formats and the ip ip ip c ifido standards xml standards for representation of electronic sps certificates there's also a technical interoperability aspect that relates to data exchange a lot of what we're seeing in this space with systems is moving from the traditional electronic data interchange approach to more application programming interface approaches that are essentially ready for digital tools and enabling kind of what i was talking about before the the move from digital infrastructure digital digital tools and then my last kind of point on the pillars of interoperability also relates to kind of that human discovery and accessibility aspect of using these information and communications technologies infrastructure and tools to actually accomplish um operational operations goals whether they be sort of at intermediate stages in the chain or they be at that that true digital trade facilitation stage um and then i'll kind of wrap up my conversation uh my presentation here by kind of speaking to everything that's needed to follow um based on some of what i've spoken to from the from the policy planning stages all all the way to the legal institutional frameworks that need to be in place so that this kind of relates to what i've mentioned with the un citro model laws which um we've seen more rapid adoption lately in jurisdictions such as uh singapore and now the uk the business process analysis aspects that really more so to looking at the supply chain reference model that's provided by un c fact and really understanding like everything from buy ship and pay everything that happens with businesses and the processes that they're involved with throughout the supply chain um then this gets moves forward into the areas of document simplification standardization this is really where we're getting into digitize before you digitalize um and then national data harmonization aspects that relate to cross border data exchange which um speaks to the pillars of interoperability in the areas of the wco data model un xml but also the private data standards such as those provided by oasis and then lastly all of these different steps feed into um national single window implementation and so the putting in place all the legal technical requirements can allow governments to kind of realize these measures um as well as their obligations from that from that legal um stake that they they have in all these things and um sort of to summarize we're really looking at here is not only just agricultural value chains but the people and the processes and the organizations that need to be combined combined and converged so that we can have um successful realization of um both the objectives of governments and multilateral bodies but also companies and people that are really trying to navigate these very challenging times and so I will wrap up um by saying that I really appreciate everyone's time and to the wto for inviting or to the fao for inviting me today and um and thank you um and I'm looking forward to answering any questions if you have time thank you very much Greg and thank you indeed for such a comprehensive presentation again when make sure it is posted and I point think of course the importance of digitalization for trade facilitation I think uh it was very important to have a good very well articulated presentation highly appreciated thank you time is running unfortunately so uh we what I propose is that we have one question there has been quite a few questions that were responded directly but then what we can have is one question for each of the of the of the presenters today so I'd like to to go back to to Misha first and ask him Misha what is the impact of what do you see as the main impact of digital trade facilitation solutions actually on farmer yeah thanks so much Dominique I'll be quick here because I know we're time's running out oh I think it really it depends on the digital solution so there could be there could be multiple avenues that it can provide benefits um I think for paperless trade it helps lower lower costs in the supply chain from different inefficiencies as we've discussed um and which ultimately can affect uh farmers bottom line they can you know in fact have a have a have an impact on their income I think when you look at things like um um open account trade finance which accounts for the vast majority of trade finance which is pretty essential to to to to participate in international markets um ultimately which for those that don't know it's basically in favor of the importer so the the producer the exporter whoever sending the goods are paid once those goods are received so there's a long payment turns and a lot of waiting and ultimately um greater efficiency the quicker delivery of goods means that they're able to be paid quicker and have uh be able to better manage their business and so um I think these are these are some of the the ways that I think about it thanks well thanks thanks a lot Misha and again thanks again thanks a lot for participating going to Nelly now in your presentation Nelly you spoke a lot of the importance of of real-time uh data availability but can you tell us what you see as some of the key challenges in making such uh real-time data available briefly that's a very good question it's a very good question I think it's um I so first of all I'm not a technical expert I see um I think we have a complexity of global movements so grasping that in one system technically will be probably a challenge um and I think the way I think we should also be very realistic about how people can read data and um let me refer back to Eurostat if you look at Eurostat it's very difficult to read it if you don't have a kind of a tool which is making the analysis for you and here um what I see is that there are smart people who are trying um to make a business out of it so they have cooperation with customs they build these data into their own solutions and sell it um but I think this is something if the data is public it should be accessible for everyone so it should be a common um project and I always find it difficult then to buy the solution from one versus another so it's always better if the solution is developed from the inside okay thanks I hope that that's clear thank you thank you and then finally Greg in a few words what do you say some of the stakes for implementation of measures for digital trade facilitation in the context the specific context of the agriculture sector well yeah and I think I think Nellie really touched on something that's critical there is that we're seeing is a lot of fragmentation so what I would say that in broad terms the and I apologize for speaking a little bit too long but I'm quite passionate about this topic I think avoiding the fragmentation problem is the is the critical um is the critical uh thing to consider for everyone who's working on different aspects of this very multi-layered uh multiple uh stakeholder problem so I would say just trying to avoid uh fragmentation and focusing on inherent interoperability I don't see any problem with private um entities being involved in developing solutions but if they do it should be that they create mechanisms by which other people can pick up and and use what they're doing so I'm a big advocate for open source solutions and that would be sort of my summary okay thank you very much like and again I would like to thank Misha Nellie and Greg for their presentation of course this is a very big topic and as you all know digitalization is is really a key priority for for FAO in the in the broad sense and and and it is actually one of the accelerator of the FAO strategic framework and therefore we would be for sure coming back to this topic in the in the coming month and in the coming events of this series of agricultural trade talks and artificial trade talks so uh rest assured we will come back and call again on our on our speakers but before closing the the event of course I would like to to reiterate the the appreciation for for the participation of the speakers of course all the participants and for their engagement there were quite a number of very good questions that that that came in that we that were I hope answered your satisfaction as I mentioned earlier we are continuing the the series of agricultural trade talks we'll try to keep the the momentum of one event per month and the next event in that respect will take place in July and we very soon send out invitation and and make sure that you can can be on on your agenda so with that I wish you all a very good rest of the day and I hope you hope you found this this session interesting and again thank you and see you all very soon bye bye thank you bye bye