 Welcome to Open Borders for growth session in this panel. We're going to talk about increasing growth in times of austerity. I have very valuable panelists here with me together here. World Economic Forum just came up with the enabling trade report. We'll start with the conclusions of the enabling trade report. Mr. Lawrence here from Professor Dr. Robert Lawrence from Harvard Kennedy School. He consulted the report. So let's begin, Mr. Lawrence. What are the recommendations of the report and what are the results that are outlined in the report? Well, this report basically looks at trade, not only by looking at countries' trade policies, but also by looking at how well their customs work, their regulatory frameworks, their infrastructure, their security. It tries to take a holistic view of what drives international trade. And we provide benchmarks against which countries can compare themselves, both within regions and globally. And the bottom line is that the very best countries turn out to be, not surprisingly, Singapore, Hong Kong, and some Scandinavian countries who have very good quality institutions, but also do well in their tariff structure and in their regulatory frameworks. We also find that there are other countries, even developing countries who do very well. Chile in Latin America would be one. Mauritius would be another country that scores very, very highly. So generally countries in this region fall into two big camps. The countries in the Gulf have done very well. They've improved, of course, we think of Dubai, but the UAE, Qatar, several Saudi Arabia do well in enabling trade in our index. I think there are also a lot of, and by the way, Georgia also does very well in our index coming 38th. So for a country at each level of development, it is performing well. I think we also need to be concerned, though, about countries that aren't doing so well, because if we're going to talk about integration, we need to adopt that broader perspective. And I would say of particular concern as we look into the future are a few brick countries. If we look at the Russian Federation, if we look at India, we see there a lot of room for improvement. To be sure, Russia has joined the World Trade Organization, but nonetheless, if we look at their institutional structures, if we look at how poorly their customs are operating, we really see sources for concern. So the bottom line is, and we've issued this report, there are 132 countries, they're rated in all of these dimensions, and it offers opportunities, even for the very strong performers, to see where they rank relatively and then to think how they can improve. So Turkey in this report ranks 62nd, and Georgia, on the other hand, ranks 38th, and we're lucky to have both of the country's economy ministers here with us today. Minister Chalyan, I would like to start with you first. What's your answer for Turkey ranking 62nd? And Turkey is located at the heart of the mega region. What's your vision for improving trade in this region? It's important to find a meaning for this region. Turkey has much more to improve its investment environment, and it's hard work for us to come to a situation where there's more investment to be done. We have a coordination structure to improve our investment environment in connection with my ministry. And this coordination structure has been serving for about 10 years. However, in the new period, with my ministry, we have changed the structure's working environment. We have made significant changes to the structure. Because I am someone who comes from the industry and investment, and I am someone who has the reflexes of industry and industry. So I don't need empathy. I don't need empathy because I am already coming from the nature of this job. And now, as a new model, a new system, we are in a understanding of the coordination structure. We have made an important reform. Of course, when we brought Turkey to this level 10 years ago, 10 years ago, the investment that came to our country didn't last for a billion dollars. And in 1923, the Turkish Republic was established. At the point we came in 2003, the total investment that came to our country in the 1980s was 14.5 billion dollars. However, in our period, with the support of political and economic investments, in the last eight years, almost eight times the total investment that came to Turkey in the 1980s has come. So we started to take the total investment that we have taken in the 1980s every year. And the total investment that came to Turkey in the last eight years is just 115 billion dollars. So this is our reform that we have made in the short time. It has affected the interest and interest of Turkey in the last stage of the policy. We have made important reform on this issue. We have made important changes in the banking system, the important exchange regime. Today, Turkey is a country that can be united with the old law system. And we have made important reforms that will reduce the bureaucracy. Do we have more or less? Of course we do. Right now, we are taking the decisions that have been taken together with the representatives of the necessary community in the necessary sector in the need for coordination in the new system. But we will do it much more quickly with the representatives of the new minister in the presence of our Prime Minister. However, of course, we have to see Turkey's parliamentary structure well at this point. We cannot say that we can quickly carry out the reforms. For example, the Turkish Trade Law is the most important of our heads. The Turkish Trade Law was the same age as me. It was the same age as mine. It was 1957. We were able to change the Turkish trade law last year. However, although we are a strong political party, and we have 165 majority in the United States, if we do not support the opposition, it is not possible to remove a law of 1,550. We have many important preparations to make reforms. Keep the idea in mind. We have many important preparations in both economic and financial aspects. However, if the number of opposition parties is small during our parliamentary process, they can delay the process if they want to. Because it is a source of our parliamentary system. Even though we are a strong political party, we can prevent the opposition from removing the laws. I would like to point out that Turkey has 29 years of cooperation with the current logistic and geographical issue. It has 75 million people. Turkey is a country with the highest domestic market capacity. Turkey has 56 countries in 4 hours of cooperation. It is an important country in the European Union and in the European Union. Today, the European Union's economic analysis is in the master's criteria. The European Union has 23 countries with a much better economy and the European Union has a much more important and effective economy. Last year, the European Union's economic analysis was lower and Turkey has a country with more than 1 million people every year. This country has entered the business of 1 million people every year. I would like to point out again that in our 2023 project, we want to include Turkey's world's first economy. For this, we want to make our areas a bit more bureaucratic, make important changes, prepare very important changes for investment and investment, make important changes in terms of taxes, and make our infrastructure, our logistics, and our energy investments according to the year 2023. In the next 10 years, Turkey will have 130 billion dollars of energy investment, and Turkey will have 110 billion dollars of investment in the railway and the transportation sector. While we evaluate Turkey, we will have a very short period of time in which Turkey will have 5-10 billion dollars of investment in this period of time. There is an old rule, in terms of politics, in terms of economy, in terms of law, and Turkey has an important advantage in being a democratic country. But I would like to share with you the work we have done and the decisions we have made. Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister. I would like to ask you, Minister Kobalia, she is the economy minister of Georgia. How do you comment on Georgia ranking 38 on the index, I mean trade index of the web forum? What do you say about that? And how do we use the trade to enhance growth of Georgia, you know, development and improvement of life in the region? In terms of being the 38, I believe that we need to do more in order to be in the top 10. This is our goal always. The same thing with being in the top 20 in the World Bank is of doing business. We are number 16 this year and our goal is to be in the top 10 in the upcoming years. Why is that important? Because Georgia is a country where we don't have natural resources, such as oil and gas, for example. So we have to be very creative about how we develop our sectors of economy and we have to make sure that all the links in the value chain of our economy are strong because just as well as the report mentioned is that your chain is just as strong as the weakest link in the chain. And it's very important to know that that if not all the parts of the development are not developing in a similar structure and similar speed, then you are just as weak as the weakest point in your supply chain. So it's important that we highlight often when we talk about development of our economy diversifying in everything that we do. So to us it's important that all the sectors of the economy are diversified, that when we talk about transport and logistics and when we talk about trade, it's just one of the components of our economic development. When we talk about trade, it's important that we make sure that our export potential is just as diversified as well and when we talk about export markets that they're also just as diversified to make sure that we're not dependent on one region or another for our export of our products. So what are we doing for sustaining this growth that we have today? Last year we had 7% growth in our economy. This year before we had 6.5% growth and I truly believe that the main reason was diversification of sectors and fight with corruption in our country which has boosted confidence for FDI and boosted confidence of local business to reinvest in our economy. So main components on the government side is investing in infrastructure and making sure that basic infrastructure is there in order for business to build on top of this so to say railroad and the needs that they have. So what we've done is over the past years we've invested heavily in roads, highways, rehabilitation of the railroad. We are currently in the process of moving a large portion of the railroad to the center of the capital for the outside of the city to make sure that it's faster and more efficient. And I think one of the most important also components was reforming the customs procedures in the country. What it did is because we are a transit country and because our economy does depend on transit of goods being the shortest route from Central Asia to Europe for transit of goods we had to make sure that custom procedures are quick and efficient so that business chooses Georgia as a transit route for their needs. So we realized that there are many components in order to create more efficient custom procedures and one of them of course was the people that work in the customs offices on the borders. So we made sure that we hired new young professionals that are working towards servicing people that go through the customs and everything is done electronically so we avoid any unnecessary mistakes or inefficiencies in the process. Which all of this led to average time on the borders to pass with any type of goods to 15 minutes. So average of 15 minutes has created as you can imagine a lot of efficiency but also what it has created is we've seen new products such as automobiles for example coming up as number one export product on the list of export products in Georgia and we don't produce any cars. So what happened is we all of a sudden became a country of re-export of goods and many of our neighboring countries such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Armenia they come to Georgia to do their trade and then they travel back and many times it's small and medium business but this is what we want to base our economy on is that we are a trade hub for our caucuses region and so that in order to be a trade hub we provide efficiency and we provide not only ease of doing business but also cleanliness of doing business in our country which has resulted to being 38 but hopefully in upcoming years being in the top 10 but of course it also means that we have to reform constantly and this is the key to everything is updating your system all the time making sure that you are not happy with what you have today but implementing new technologies investing into education and investing further into infrastructure Thank you Minister Kobaya as Georgia aspires to be a trade hub let's hear from the business side what the business side thinks of improving trade in the region I would like to ask a question to be Simon he's the CEO of Agility a major logistic company a European company in the region but who does lots of business in the region so Mr. Simon what do you say about improving trade in the region maybe I think I want to elaborate a little bit more on the soft facts first is the stability of the finance and the political environment I think this is key to success in trades and if you see it also normally when the environment gets more difficult governments tend to focus very much on national interests especially in these complex environments I think it's really needed to get a broader view and I like very much the elaboration this morning of the Turkish Prime Minister how he sees the views and how he sees a broader view and I think that is also the future why you see for instance the subprime crisis in the US impacted US but also European banks and had substantial impact on consumption in the US and on international trade on the trans-Pacific, on the transatlantic you see the government debt crisis we have in central Europe whereas especially the south European countries they overspent for decades and now they have to save now from my perspective yes they need austerity but you still have to grow so there has to be a balanced view on how you approach savings because a big part of the European GDP relates to government spending also at the same time and another problem you have is you see the busts of the housing or real estate bubble in Spain and at the same time we face problems like in Switzerland where we are kind of trying to avoid to have building up of a new bubble and I think to really top it at the same time in the Middle East you have the Arab Spring which is certainly nice in the midterm but for the business it's uncertainty and kind of is to have an overall on that one political and financial stability is really key to drive growth between the regions another one is of course citizens I think it starts with each of us nowadays if you open the newspaper very early in the morning it's not exactly positive so maybe also here would be nice to see more optimism from all the stakeholders there's so many things happening in Turkey in Georgia in many many countries they still have a lot of positive news but if you open the news they're mainly focusing on the negative so I think if people are concerned to lose the job they're not going to buy a new car they're not going to go to vacation to Turkey they're not going to go to Spain or to Greece so I think confidence next to political and financial stability are key factors another one for the business community is especially for the small and medium-sized companies access to cash it is nice if the European Central Bank announces that interest rates are very low however if there is no financing from the banks to the smaller companies you can have a good product you can generate a good profit if you have no working capital you're not going to do any business so I think here definitely we have to assure that the money also reaches the smaller companies who really kind of drive the business so I think that is more or less how we see the key soft factors that drive trade thank you Mr. Simon we have one more participant from the business world Mr. Malas is here with us he's the CEO of Majid Al-Futangrup from United Arab Emirates his firm is a leading shopping mall retail leisure pioneer across Minna region Mr. Malas what are the major challenges of goods distribution in the region particularly regarding the market access I mean clearly there are many differences across countries so it's very difficult to generalize I think if you want to cover some of the major ones I think there is still an issue around poor infrastructure and there I would say two major elements typically it's the logistic centers and the fragility is trying to cover and others but there is still a huge demand for improved logistics which is very important in the supply chain and that's one factor the other related infrastructure issue is that of the road and rail infrastructure within the countries especially landlocked countries which then have very difficult access to see and markets the other aspect which is related is either port or airport operations and that's very important and therefore it's not very surprising to see in fact in the top five markets countries like Singapore Hong Kong, Dubai leading the way in terms of having state of the art airport and port facilities because that is really the role they play on a regional basis in addition to that and I think we covered some of that I think excessive regulations or if you like excessive requirements clearance requirements are always an issue and documentation in some of the countries is an issue in fact according to the latest IFC bank report is of doing business report the MENA region requires 6.3 documents to actually have an export while OECD requires 4.4 similarly on imports which is actually quite interesting is even higher requirement there you have 7.6 documents in the MENA region while in OECD countries is 4.8 points then you have a very burdensome and time consuming custom clearance process if we look at the latest statistics you see that time it takes about 19.7 days to export out of MENA region that is 10.5 days in the OECD countries and on imports is even higher it takes 27.6 days to get a whole import transaction in the MENA region as opposed to 10.7 in OECD then you add to it other element which which are issues around border issues which sometimes are related to politics and then you have trucks waiting to cross borders for weeks and weeks and that's very expensive for business you have lack of financing you still have issues also around for an ownership especially in the GCC and that's also a general business but also a burden to facilitating trade and setting up businesses in the region Thank you Mr. Malas we heard from the three sides government, business and academia I would like to ask you Inger Andersen she's the vice president of Middle East North Africa of World Bank how can we help civil society, business and government achieve optimal results of trade in the region all these things that come together very nicely because although we're talking very different countries there are certain things that are similar across the board one thing is what is this all about it's about jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs jobs, that's what people want how are we going to drive those jobs well to get to that we have to get at growth right so what kind of growth is it and part of that so what is the growth story going to be clearly trade is very important and I'll get to that but also foreign direct investment is absolutely significant as is the kind of economies that we design how open the flexibility that you're talking about how speedily can you get your things across the border and so on all these rankings that we all cite because it is of course an obvious case if I have access to the cash if I can move my goods across the border well then my economy will grow so these things come together and then a story that was an undercurrent of the Arab Spring of course was about exclusion or inclusion is this just an economy for the few or is it an economy for everybody and so and finally maybe the skills that we produce in these societies what kind of skills do we graduate out of universities and colleges are they actually the skills that the job market needs in the Middle East and North Africa there is a disconnect the private sector says they can't find they can't fill their vacancies and we all know that in many of the Middle Eastern countries the more educated you are the more likely you are to be unemployed so there is not a skills match here so when you ask about what we can do well on the trade story there is a very important thing to be done and part of it deals with this regulatory framework but we also have economies that are essentially distorted in many of the Middle East and North African countries so what do I mean by that well in a way we have in many Middle Eastern countries and North African countries big government 25% on average is the employer of government much smaller in comparator countries around 10 16% and so on very big government that distorts the whole thing and very small manufacturing so if you have a tiny manufacturing sector and that's where you have the job intensive sector then clearly that's a point 10% or so is manufacturing in the Middle East I was looking for Malaysia for example 20% so that's an inverse relationship so when you look at all of this it's about the structure of the economy we also in the Middle East are subsidizing energy very heavily when you subsidize energy what tends to happen is that you then drive energy intensive production lines these are generally labor poor whereas if you tax labor and and not so what's happening with subsidizing energy and taxing labor so we get labor poor investments whereas we want labor rich investments so there is a story around the whole aspect of the structure of the economy but then a second point we'll deal around and that's short to a question civil society well these economies will grow if we have transparency better governance the sun is the best disinfectant and so the more light we throw on things the better we will have the drive time corruption we will have more open media people will be accountable there will be a greater degree of social cohesion so these are the kind of elements that need to come into play and I think that once we've seen a dip in growth in many of our Middle East and North African countries they've gone through this transition when we look at longer term and you're right short term we are seeing a little bit of a drop in growth but longer term this will anchor pluralism this will anchor a stronger social contract and then therefore this should anchor the business environment provided these reforms are made that I mentioned thank you Mrs. Anderson so jobs jobs jobs as you said trade needs to create jobs not decrease jobs and business environment needs confidence level and the less the documents the better of course as governments work on reforms to promote trade in the region and in their countries Minister I would like to continue with you let's start the second session how can the region's production and service capabilities fit into the global value chains what do you say about that in terms of reforms improving trade in the country in the region yes we need to test that 2008 global crisis the world's economy has also created a wave actually it's been 10 years there are very different developments in the world and this was a natural journey because in the past years in the previous years developed countries the economy that was selling goods to developed countries was going south even though in the Middle East North Africa and Eurasia the geography was the most important geography to me and at this point in the world economy even though in developing countries the growth of the economy we see the growth of the developed countries in the world economy was at the level of development at this point developed countries are in Turkey in India in Brazil countries in the world economy developed countries are at the level of the world economy but in the next 10 years developed countries from the world trade on 60% with the future currently being discussed and on the other hand it is necessary to examine the region that is located in Turkey as I said in Turkey in the geography of 56 countries and in this geography of 56 countries trade conditions trade habits production capabilities there are many changes in the general world even though with our neighbors with North Africa with Middle East and with the Eurasia economy which we have made a 17 year agreement with Europe we increase our trade every last year but in Turkey with the demand for the economic crisis in Europe last year this year even though we have fallen to the level of 40 thousand we continue to do the highest export of our culture and the last year we have a country that has made a profit of $35 billion which has made a profit of $40 billion which has made a profit of $14.5 billion here the region that is located in Turkey our cultural ties our cultural ties our ties to the country our ties to the religion many countries come from the same village and in Turkey after 2002 the region which wants peace and peace and the rule of law in Turkey it has brought an important issue look, from New York you can go to Seattle for 5 hours from Turkey you can go to 56 countries for that in North Africa in Middle East in Europe and in Eurasia 1.5 billion people live in this region 3.1 billion people are created and in this region from the global trade from Italy 46% are paid so 8.5 trillion dollars is made in this region our trade in Africa 8 years ago when we look at the level that it has come today it has increased today the trade experience in Africa has come to about 20 billion dollars our trade 8 years ago it has increased more than 4 times now the only thing that needs to be seen in Europe needs to be seen in other countries because in today's world as someone from the industry once the production means just in time you know the nearest health center takes you to the last level on the other hand in the geography that we talked about in Turkey if we take it to Asia in this geography in 10 years 1 billion people from low income will be transferred to a middle-income group so these people will need to trade not only in Turkey but also in the last level look at Turkey last year 31.5 million tourists came and in Turkey for the first time 23 billion dollars has been earned and Turkey became the 4th largest tourism destination in Europe in the same way today in Turkey in health tourism and in the health sector a country that has increased success every day today Europe's age-old population and the health system in Europe in the social security system very tight the waiting period of patients and in this issue many countries in Europe do not want economic problems Turkey is bringing a very important position in the health sector now we are making important openings about health tourism Turkey currently has a hundred percent university special sector state university and every year 700.000 young people are graduated from universities and in Turkey the young people have a job on the other hand in the tourism sector in Turkey and in the world the second largest tourism country in the world every year in the 225th international tourism company they take place every year and this year in the last year in the 225th international tourism company behind the Chinese the second largest in the world look in 94 countries 6.511 projects more than 211 billion dollars airports bridges, elevators underground construction around the world very important tourism services we started to do engineering services we have done all over the world these services are almost close to half North Africa, Libya the most important and in the Middle East again in the services we have done a very important number about 35 billion dollars Russian Federation and in the geography in the countries our relationships last but not least every day of the region the increase in wealth but on the other hand an important new turn a new change and a change with the presence of democratic wealth the economic meaning of the region and the democratic meaning an important issue the geography we have found even in North Africa in the Middle East we have not been satisfied with the democratic wealth and the change with the Arab Spring the countries around us will be very important I want to make a single sentence about the previous issue of course Turkey in the place where the World Bank can do customs issues from everyone at this point 436 billion dollars has a foreign currency and 772 billion dollars was a country that was united last year even in customs relations customs of your country is not enough the countries around you what level of customs they have developed the last level is important customs of your country may have developed customs of your country customs of your country customs of your country customs of your country so the work that will be done here if we only evaluate as a country-based work this will be a negative look as someone who has been a minister for 5 years and on the other hand he has done 27% of his salary but the last sentence our region the last level is important the economic development the social development in one direction and Turkey in the region the important role and demand in the economic sense from full integration we want to do more work we want to do more trade in the United States a research that has done the world trade and the results at this point the countries around us North Africa and Russia the important strategy the economic development the economic development not only Turkey the development of the region the last level is important any functions like railway the service capability fits into the global value chain I wanted to add a few points that were mentioned earlier in the discussion one I believe education is a very big part of everything we are talking about because it was mentioned earlier it is important that we have skills matching happened in the 90s is that we had a lot of students that were choosing professions such as legal or economics or medical, which are all very important professions, but we ended up with no skilled labor and we ended up without a strong skill pool of people with technical education. So what we've realized that we need to do more as government to encourage students to make the right choices for their future life to make sure that they choose professions where they can be employed in the future and choose professions where they can be a part of our growing economy because what is happening in a lot of sectors today in Georgia is you look at the construction sector or you look at the agro sector, we are lacking skilled professionals even though we still have high unemployment rate. So what we've done is we've done a lot of education back into the high schools on the high school level talking with students and encouraging them to choose technical education. We're working with MCC right now with the Millennium Challenge Corporation on the future project of the American Technical University in Georgia to make sure that there is more opportunities for students to choose the right technical education. And what we've seen is last year technical education was the first choice of students in comparison to the years before. So this is already a result where in, you know, five, ten years we're going to have the labor pool strong enough with technical and also high tech education where we can support the type of investment that we're doing in the development of these sectors. And the second point I wanted to touch upon is also that my colleague mentioned is in terms of the relationships that you have and the agreements that you have with your neighboring countries. We have free trade agreement with Turkey which has resulted in huge trade turnover for our country between Turkey and Georgia. Turkey is our number one trade partner and in a large portion to the result because we have efficiency but on the border but also because we have these type of agreements and for example you don't need a passport to travel between the borders so it's easy for people to make business and it's easy for people to travel between our two countries. As an example also last year at the end of 2010 we signed an open air agreement with EU which is an agreement that allowed any airline, European airline to fly without any restrictions to Georgia which resulted in doubling the number of airlines that fly today to Georgia resulted in the need of construction of a new airport next to the second largest city of Georgia and the attraction of low budget airlines which automatically increased number of tourists and increased number of business and trade that happens in the country. So having these type of legal agreements between neighboring countries and as minister mentioned 25% of trade happens between your neighboring countries so it's important that you make sure that the legal arrangements are strong, that you have efficiency in the system itself, the bureaucracy is on the minimum level as possible and that you for the long term invest into the education of your society. Thank you minister Kobalia as trade agreements between neighboring countries help increase trade but I would like to address the second question how do the agreements work on the ground maybe Mr. Simon you would like to elaborate a little bit on that. Well once those agreements are in place we normally evaluate the business opportunities and we do that in a way by bringing own people on the ground and then we first understand the local rules habits and regulations having done that we kind of consider what is the investment needs and normally we go we either buy a company or we partner with somebody who has local know-how or we go greenfield now each of the different ways to enter has its pros and cons in a way if you buy a company especially in in emerging markets you have some sometimes surprises on certain regulatory activities when you bought the company want to integrate it but on the positive you always already have a market understanding immediately you buy kind of a customer base you buy know-how if you partner that's also we did only to give you figure we bought in the last 10 years about 40 companies worldwide so if you partner I think that's also we use in some markets where we assure that our brokers in the local market will be faster if you go together with a local entrepreneur or who somebody already has a certain infrastructure know-how in the markets then the other one is greenfields where we decide to start it from scratch now that's kind of a slow process because you start to invest in local resources the advantages you can bring your own systems in so if you have global operating systems global finance systems you start it from scratch go slow but you're sure that you have a sound base and and you have in this area you have less struggle so in the way that's how we get those things then on the ground thank you interesting points let's open it up for questions please identify yourselves and your company if you have a question yes please Salah Hussaini from Saudi Arabia MP I think we have in one side for example the GCC total import is 260 billion it's a good trade in the region on the other hand when you look at the region you will find Algeria Libya Sudan Somalia man Iraq Syria Palestine they are totally outside the trade system the global trade system they are not part of the WTO and this is a critical question to develop this on the other hand you see the GCC total import is 260 is equivalent to the total import of India which is a big market thank you and this is for who anybody anybody who would like to answer I guess maybe I I think the point is very well taken that success requires integration into the world economy and the exercise of actually joining something like the World Trade Organization is very painful for countries but also requires them to reevaluate the strategies which they've been followed following and Saudi Arabia went through quite a very painful process for quite a long time but I think it was all to the good so I think other countries are that still have not even exceeded to the WTO which is sort of a minimal standard really are half have to get in line because that's just the first step in getting trade policies in order we've elaborated on the many other things that have to also work on the ground but nonetheless it is a precondition so I think the question is very well taken and this is Anderson would you like to add something just to add that in a sense you know you do have in this world the trade haves and the trade have knots and I think that that's what the question is is highlighting and and maybe there is a lesson here for us to reflect on for the Middle East and North Africa region because parameters have shifted what was yesterday is not today and tomorrow we're no longer just trading services or commodities we're trading tasks services even is of yesterday right we're trading tasks and so we're no longer looking at the Moroccan factory the Sudanese factory we're looking at the Asian factory a thing is produced one place assembled another moved a added value in a third place and so on and the whole thing is integrated with the logistics that you were talking about and so there is a mindset switch that as these borders have now come down in many of the Middle East and North Africa region as we're no longer talking of countries that are connected on a continent but speaking as islands as we're talking about integration well that's where opportunities will become possible so I think you are putting very much your finger on the on the issue here that how to drive that greater integration and WTO is a long trip and a long journey and one that countries have embarked upon with great gain some of those that were mentioned the example may not be the first ones that might line up in that line but beginning to figure out what is it that you do beyond behind the border what what do you need to do on your photosanitary on your sanitary on your norms and your customs on your regulatory framework all of that stuff will be good in the long run to ensure that you can then move more positively and with greater great gain into the global markets as you say mrs. Anderson it's a good point there is a need for greater integration and what do we need to do beyond the border that's what we need to think about I believe and mr. shall I do you have a point to add kuzi africa da ve avrasya geografiasında iracatının üretiminin daha fazlasını bu bölgede yoğunlaştırmış olan bir türkü olarak tabi ki birlikte iş yapmış olduğumuz ülkelerin dünya ticayet örgütü kurallarına entegre olması kere kendi ülkem adına son derece bu önemli görürken bir haksız rekabet usuru ortaya çıkartmamasını sağlamak adına bunu önemli dünya ticayet örgütüne şu anda üyelik sürecinde olan veya şu anda üyelik için başvurmasa dahi o bölgedeki ve diğer bölgelerdeki bir çok ülkeninde geçiş maliyetlerinin bir şekilde sağlanarak bu ülkelere gerektir reformları yapacak gerekli düzenlemedeli yapacak belli bir süre bunun maliyetlerini de bir şekilde karşılanarak bu ülkelerinde mutlak sürette kuralların içine sokulması gerekiyor yani bir futbol maçına çıkıyorsunuz siz bir ülke olarak dünya ticayet örgütüne üyesiniz uf kurallarına göre oynuyorsunuz ama diğer karşınızdaki rakip dünya ticayet örgütüne üye değil ve uf kurallar onun için geçerli değil şimdi nasıl maç yapacaksınız bu karşılaşma nasıl olacak bu karşılaşmada kurallar neye göre çalışacak bu noktada dünya ticayet örgütünün her toplantısında ben bu işin Türkiye'deki görevlisi bakan olarak mutlak sürette dünya ticayet örgütüne üye olamamış olan ülkelerin mutlaka sistem için entegra sınıf önemsiyorum örneğin bu süre federasyonun bu yıl yapılan törenle dünya ticayet örgütü üyesi olması son derece önemsiyorum ve diğer taraftan da dünya ticayet örgütünde bazı ülkelerin yapmış olduğu engellemelerin de aslında bir an önce normalleşme sürecine girerek bu konuda çok önemli yapacağı çalışmalar olduğunu inanıyorum maalesef küresel krizler ülkelerde aşırı koromacılık refleksini geliştirebiliyor ülkeler ister istemez özel sektöründe gelen baskısıyla çok aşırı koromacılığa girebiliyor ama dünya ticayet örgütünde bu kuralları nasıl olduğu koromacılığa nasıl yapılacağı çok tedbirlidir ve türki olarak bizde sonuna kadar ticayetli serbestleştirmesinden yana tavır almış olan bir ülke için over in the last five minutes so we have just one question we can take one more question a brief question please no no if they're no please hi my name is Ravi Subramanian I'm a global shaper from Mumbai I have a question for Mr. Cavalia you said you know Georgia lacks no you said Georgia lacks you know certain skills you know which which need to be addressed and in any economy it's actually the small and medium enterprises which create jobs so do you are you taking any policy measures to incentivize you know SMEs from outside to actually come and set up business in Georgia absolutely that's a good question because we believe that our economy should be based on small and medium business and this would be the right way to build a sustainable economy for years to come in terms of attracting small and medium business from other countries we are very open as I said we are a small country with a small market so it makes sense for us to have an open market economy and in terms of privatization of real estate or land it's the same rules and regulations for foreign investors as it is for local businesses in Georgia so it's basically as open as it could be we have small and medium businesses investing from Asia including from India in different business sectors including the ICT sector with the data centers and call centers right now it's becoming more and more increasing business opportunity also in terms of the agricultural sector there has been a lot of movement because we believe in order to increase the levels right now agricultural sector is probably the one sector that's lagging behind in Georgia so we are attracting new technologies to the sector and we believe in countries where this sector is developed and where new technologies have been implemented for years to come are a good example where businesses from those two countries can come and invest in Georgia and build on the productivity levels and build on the opportunities that are available you can see that in Georgia more than 40% of the population is involved in agricultural sector but only it's only 9% to GDP so there's a huge opportunity in the sector with different crops growing and export markets available in our neighboring countries so the country is open for all types of foreign investments and it's open including the agriculture sector in the minister Kovaya thank you so much for your insights thank you all thank I would like to thank all of our panels it was a great session and let's clap for our panelists. Thank you. Welcome to Georgia.