UNCTAD press conference on Maritime Transport 11 November 2020

Good afternoon, everyone.

As you know, Ontad will publish tomorrow.

It's a new review of maritime transport.

It's the oldest report produced by Ontad.

It started in back-to-back in 1968.

This report is on the embargo until tomorrow morning at 6:00 AM GMT, so 7:00 AM Geneva time.

I have the pleasure to welcome on this virtual podium Shamika Siriman, who is the Director of the Division on Trade and Logistics in Otan, and Jan Hoffman, who is the Chief of the Trade Logistics Branch and who has coordinated the the production of this report.

Both are experts in maritime transport.

So I will first give the flow to Mrs Sherryman.

She will give you introductory remarks.

Jan will go into some details and then we'll take the flow.

You know where the raise hand button is on your screen.

On mine, it's on the right hand side at the bottom of the at the, yeah, at the bottom of the screen.

And we'll take questions after the introduction.

Shamika Ceraman, please, you have the floor.

Thank you, Catherine.

And a big welcome to all the journalists who are participating in this press conference on Antar's review of maritime Transport 2020.

And it's a flagship publication of Antar.

So let me give you some of the highlights.

Global maritime trade is expected to decline by 4.1% in 2020 and these are our numbers.

And of course this is because of the unprecedented global health and economic crisis that was brought on by COVID-19.

But the 2020 was a very sad situation for maritime because it was already, it was happening on the background of a 2019 where the the sector was pretty depressed.

So things could not have gone wrong in 2020 then and what happened now?

The projections for 20/21 is maritime trade to grow at 4.8% and this is our projection.

But the assumption is that the World Economic output will recover.

Now I mentioned that 2020 was unfolding against an already depressed sector and in 2019 growth in the maritime trade was just barely .5% and it is quite unheard of.

And in 2019 we said this is the lowest since the financial crisis.

Now when we write this report in 2020, we again said and this 2020 is the lowest, you know, since the financial crisis.

So the things are not that great in 2019.

I think these are things that we inherited to 2020 is the trade tensions uncertainty that was created by the trade tensions and the continuous slowdown in the global economy, global trade and the low oil demand.

And then of course there are some exogenous shocks like sanctions and disasters on top of all that.

So that's the background of, you know, where we are in 2019 and where we have come in 2020.

Now it's interesting that we also noted in our book that the trade tensions have caused some trade patterns to shift to alternative markets.

For example, we see redirection of trade flows away from China towards other markets like Southeast Asia.

We also see USA reducing its exports to China but then picked it up by increasing their merchandise exports to the rest of the world.

Now, the response of the sector to COVID-19 was the sector ready?

Of course, you know, like all other economic sectors, all of us, the maritime trade was not prepared for this pandemic.

But what we also noted in the report is that the maritime industry quite adjusted quite rapidly to the unfolding situation.

For example, when cargo volume started to drop, container shipping adopted a strategy to basically to stay alive.

They cut capacity and reduce costs just to stabilise freight rates.

And this worked and some of the strategies that the container industry used were the suspending services, blanking scheduled sailings, rerouting vessels and so forth.

So I must also now say that the, even though the sector and all of us were UN were were taken unaware by this pandemic.

All in all, maritime transport and logistics kept essential goods and trade flows moving, ships moved, ports kept open.

So we should be thankful to the maritime sector.

The people still could buy food and medicine and essential goods in our neighbourhood shops, even though we were, you know, even when we were in a very strict lockdown.

So then this bring me to the other point is the unsung heroes who put food on our table.

And these are the seafarers.

They have been making huge personal sacrifices throughout this pandemic.

A large numbers of seafarers were stuck in ships, many for many months, and they were unable to sign off after long tours of duty to go home.

And some on the other hand could not get returned back to work.

They could not get on a flight and to go meet a ship.

So I'm tired.

As well as other agencies like the ILO and IMO, we have been calling for designating seafarers and marine personals as critical workers and exempt from them from trade travel restrictions.

Doesn't matter where they are from where their nationalities.

So there is some more work needs to be done.

This area and this we discussed in the report.

So now give me let me give me a little bit of a regional perspective because we you hear the global situation is 4.1 decline, 4.1% decline in the maritime trade.

Now all developing regions were affected and in fact Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean and most sub regions in Asia and the Pacific recorded double digit dropped drops in exports always as well as imports.

I think only region we see that the the the trade is not affected so badly is East Asia and it's China is a is a big factor here.

As you know that the developing countries basically dominate maritime trade today.

This was not the story in 1970s but it is the story today.

So when something happened to maritime trade, it affects the developing countries pretty badly.

Now, in 2019, developing countries accounted for 58% of goods being loaded as 65% of goods being unloaded.

So these are big numbers.

But within developing countries, when you see where these things are and what's the, you know, diversity of this picture, we see that this is a very much a story of Asia and the Pacific.

And developing Asia Pacific accounted for 76% of all maritime trade loaded and unloaded in developing countries.

So 78% of developing countries export imports that went on ships were generated in simply in Asia.

And it is still because the IT is still the factory of the world and we see a lot of maritime trade, intra Asian trade between China and Southeast Asia.

And we also see Asia leading in, in container port cargo handling with 65% of global container port traffic happening in Asia.

And we see 16 out of 20 world container ports are in Asia and eight of them are in China.

So maritime is becoming a very much an Asia Pacific story.

So now my last point is that we have, I think it will be nice if you can take the book and take a look at the last pages of the executive summary where we put 6 priorities for the sector as it future proofs itself for more shocks.

Because in the report we say that the multiple shocks is the is the norm and it's no longer the exception.

So let me just briefly take you through the six recommendations.

Number one, we are calling all countries to support international trade so we can see global economic recovery faster.

And we think that the trade tensions, protectionism, export restrictions, particularly for essential goods in times of crisis is not the way to go.

And if we, if the international trade does not recover and I don't think it's going to bode well for the global economic recovery next year #2 we also say that we need to ensure global supply chain readjustments are smart.

Of course, in the middle of the pandemic, there were a lot of talk about shortening supply chains, reassuring supply chains, bringing them home, basically domesticating global supply chains.

And we say it is not a good idea.

This is not the way to keep the global supply chains efficient at low cost and resilient.

Our recommendation is to make sure that the global supply chains are much more diversified than today.

And the third recommendation we say is that the digital technology is here and it is here to stay.

And the maritime sector also needs to embrace this technology.

So in the report, we talk a lot about the smart port, smart shipping, and we also talk a lot about the new e-commerce, emerging new trade or digital trade on e-commerce and the possibilities that this will bring to the maritime sector.

But to benefit from the digital technologies, there needs to be a lot of rules and I mean regulations and legal frameworks put in place to address cybersecurity, data protection, consumer protection and so forth forth.

So the readiness needs to be especially in the regulatory environment needs to be ready to embrace this new technology.

And 4th, we say harness near real time data in maritime sector for monitoring and making evidence based policy.

We have used the satellite, satellite data to look at the economic activity.

We we look at the port core data to see where the economic activity is picking up.

And we believe this sort of satellite data, the real time or near real time data that can be generated in this sector should be used more and more to have early warning systems for economic performance.

And the fifth one is we say to the industry that there is a great need to invest in risk management and emergency emergency response preparedness.

Risk management is a not a luxury.

Risk management has to be part and parcel of the business model for the maritime industry.

Here we also say as a special consideration, it should be given to see fairest concerns because in another pandemic, if this same same story repeats for seafarers, and I think you'll be an extremely unjust world.

And the last point and the last priority that we have identified, the 6th 1, is to maintain the momentum on sustainability, climate change adaptation and resilience.

Building current efforts to deal with carbon emissions from shipping and the ongoing energy transition away from fossil fuels should still remain a priority.

And we tell the governments that they need to direct their stimulus packages to support such a green recovery.

And that's the way forward for the sector and also for the world.

And here we also identify that the least developed countries, especially the small islands economies, need lot more help.

They are at the mercy of climate change, but they also do not have enormous amount of resources that you need to put in place to decarbonise their economies and their the maritime sector.

So the International Development partners needs to pitch in in there and especially in the efforts of the LDCs and small island economies.

So these are the six priorities that we have identified for the sector as it moves towards this new normal situation.

Thank you very much.

[Other language spoken]

Jan, over to you.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much.

Yeah, to to complement what Shamika introduced, I noted down 3 a bit more details #1 is about this projection.

This forecast is negative growth.

Yes -4.1 estimate projection is bad, but it could have been much worse.

And I think Famika alluded to this, that overall the maritime industry actually responded quite well.

In fact, we had to make quite some effort while we prepared the review.

We had to back our editors and politically ONS to update our forecast because initially it was worse.

If you look at earlier years and if you all have the, the report, the the figure, the first figure 1.1 really also shows this relationship between economic growth and C1 trade growth.

If we had maintained the same relationship as we have observed over the last decades, when the economy goes down as much as it is projected for this year, I think the projection here is -4.3 GDP decline.

Normally trade and C1 trade would have gone down much more.

So I actually think the news is why did it not go down even further?

[Other language spoken]

It hasn't been that bad since the financial crisis where I think it was -4.5.

But what we do, observe that what do people do when they are in lockdown?

They actually buy more stuff instead of all the declines in services and not going to restaurants.

It's domestic, but people still buy stuff and, and the shipping industry, as we can point out, is still working.

Companies are actually refilling their inventories.

They're increasing their inventories to be more resilient.

We have improved efficiencies.

And I'll come back to this.

That's my point #2 So comparing those number, the message could be it's bad, but if the dear journalists have the time and actually look at the details, the story may be it's not as bad as it could have been.

My second point, So go on.

Fanika mentioned this.

This whole it's an opportunity, sustainability.

We have some really novel data.

[Other language spoken]

Catherine told me not to do a PowerPoint, but there it is.

Figure 3.31 and some really interesting novel data which is quite tiny.

Next week at the IMO, the MEPC, the Marine Environment Protection Committee will meet and and we have data that assigns CO2 emissions from shipping to different ship types to different flag States and we discuss what explains those differences.

So this is in the context of other work that we are doing at Angta where we collaborate with the IMO, the International Maritime Organisation.

We, we collaborate with them on the impact assessments of the Mevas that will be taken to achieve the targets to reduce emissions from shipping.

So we, we believe and we support that impact assessments need to be done.

They should not lead to a delay in decarbonisation.

And we hope that Mevas adopted will actually also help support the weakest economies, the SITS.

That's why if you're going states the least developed countries, developing countries.

So in that context, I I wanted to draw your attention to to these 3-4 figures, page 56, which is quite novel in in its approve.

If journalists are interested to receive the underlying data for those figures because it doesn't fit everything in the report, Catherine or myself, we can also send the underlying Excel tablet.

Third Point, I wanted to highlight the whole digitalisation.

We have said that we want to lock in the progress made during lockdown.

Really there there's a lot of puff these days.

And the team of the Trade Logistics branch and also other colleagues working on e-commerce in the whole Division of Technology and Logistics, the port reform programme, the Asikoula colleagues, we have much more work this year.

And, and Traeca, I hope you're nodding right now.

You have much more work over the last months and even more than in other years because customs, ports, border agencies, transport companies, they realise that the messages we have preached over the last decades about automation, electronic submission, pre arrival processing, single windows, transit corridors, all these are actually even more important now in times of the pandemic and and our programmes.

If we had more time, we could promote our customs automation programme, the transit corridors, the trade information portraits, port management training, fast track custom solutions, push for single windows tracking in the now cast of maritime traffic.

All these are now in more demand and I think that really shows that.

And I think even journalists at times, they like to talk about a trade of only for imbalance.

[Other language spoken]

Or I protect my population.

Actually it's the wrong picture.

All the what we promote in the review, the never said I included included in the WTO trade station agreement.

The the programmes we have from customs to ports to transit to trade facilitation.

They really help achieve both no facilitate maritime trade and protect populations, transport works and so on.

[Other language spoken]

But there were just a trick I did no doubt, yet I want to.

I really want to thank ***** Calls for highlighting the crueling crisis.

Yesterday we participated again in two meetings in New York and in New York media conference where Indonesia is leading innovative for UN General Assembly resolution to help support the seafarers and with the IMO and the IO and the World Health Regulation.

We are coordinating as Anktad also here in Geneva to to support this and the agent task force.

For me, I highlighted this problem very clearly and I just wanted to add that that actually ongoing initiatives that we also participate this human tragedy.

And and while the overall shipping imports have coped I think very well and we report this and the numbers forward with the COVID, they are reforming further.

The seafarers are the ones suffering most in our sector from this crisis so far.

Some additional thoughts.

I think that's complemented.

I hope that's complemented.

Thank you very much.

And I I see hands that are raised online.

Of course we're online.

[Other language spoken]

Laurent Ciero, Swiss news agency.

Can we give the floor to Laurent?

Feel free to raise your question in French if you wish.

[Other language spoken]

Can you hear me, Catherine?

Yes, perfectly.

[Other language spoken]

The first on the forecast because in the the embargoed.

News release, you say that.

In case of further waves, the forecast might worsen.

So do you have a a worst case scenario?

And then on the.

Seafarers, do we know whether there are still?

Some of them who are stuck at sea.

[Other language spoken]

Who wants to answer?

I can, I can start and then Jan, please take it up.

I think the projections for 20/21 is for maritime trade growth to record 4.8%.

But as you said, I think this is all based on assumptions.

The assumptions are that the 2021, the economic, there will be economic recovery.

At the moment, that's what the old agencies, the United Nations, the IMF, the World Bank, regional banks, they're all predicting the recovery in 2021.

So our numbers are based on that and it's a pretty new numbers as Jan said, I think they we were changing these numbers until two weeks ago, week ago.

So at the moment, our number is 4.8%.

But you know, if the second surge of the COVID-19 affect the entire world as badly as the first one, and if we all go into lockdowns and so forth, then we will update this number in, in the coming probably maybe mid-december.

We don't have the numbers updating.

We cannot update right now.

So Jan, would you want to add?

[Other language spoken]

On the forecast, really we were even reluctant discussing could we even put one number in in the report.

It's basically about scenarios, a worst case scenario.

[Other language spoken]

The the whole recession could go on, but it could also be more of a recovery depending on global politics, discontinued trade wars.

So it may be more of a rebound on the seafarers.

Yes, very much.

And in fact, I was hoping to find the very latest numbers now, but I think the ones we have the review are still valid.

[Other language spoken]

Yes, very much.

This has unfortunately not been an improvement if anything, as time passes by and more and more seafarers are beyond their normal time.

That depends on the type of ship and contract.

Six months, maybe nine months, but but normally less so time pass and they cannot leave the ship.

So the response to the second question is clearly yes, if that was the way it was formulated, yes, they are still stuck and if anything the numbers are increasing.

Thank you very much.

Shan, Paula and Gipal Debias, please, you're unmuted.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much.

[Other language spoken]

So thank you for the report.

I just had a question, given that so many of these ships are registered in some of these islands and least developed countries, does it really make sense, you know, for, for them to, I mean, for the system to, to exist, you know, in the context of what you're saying with regard to the lack of access to technologies that these, that these countries may have, but also just, you know, regulation.

I, I guess that's, that's probably where I'm going.

The, the, the regulation in these countries, since they're so dependent on these, this, this industry will do you think that it's possible that these countries would make the efforts necessary to regulate those, those ships when it comes to emissions and, you know, sustainable, you know, a functioning in a sustainable fashion.

[Other language spoken]

You want to because you don't want registries.

[Other language spoken]

Yeah, it's, it's a topic we have worked on quite a lot and it is in general the system sometimes it's called flex of convenience, but but we don't use this term anymore.

It's it's really open registries.

Two thoughts here.

First, it is true many of these countries are relatively small and they outsource a lot of the tasks that need to be done to classification societies, other private companies.

But on the other hand, for the small countries, it is an opportunity because the costs and benefits to run the registry are the same whether you're a very big country or a small country.

And because small island States, and it's true many registries are on small island developing states, there are many things they cannot engage in industrial production, there are many things they cannot do, but providing certain services is possible for them in terms of their engagement in this decarbonisation.

It is true different registries, different countries at the IMO in Paris don't always have the same opinion.

But if I just take the three biggest registries, Panama, Liberia and Mafia Islands, the three of them are also particularly affected by climate change.

Panama Canal had big problems with lack of water.

It was not raining enough for the Panama Canal.

Liberia has been affected quite strongly by climate change and the Marshall Islands are very low lying at all.

And Marshall Islands have been actually very active.

It is important there.

Now I how do we work this very carefully because very often these registry governments outsource certain tasks of managing the registry.

In some cases there's criticism that they may lose control.

And then who speaks on behalf of the registry?

I would agree it is important that the governments really exercise control and define and express the policy and the decisions and and then being small, poor countries, what makes them even more interested in an ambitious goal towards decarbonization.

[Other language spoken]

And, and the big ones, if I may add this, the, the, in terms of the fleets that are registered in the three biggest registries, Panama, Alpha Islands, Liberia, they, these fleets are above average in terms of their, their efficiency.

They are younger, they are not on the blacklist in port state control and so on.

So they are also better prepared for more ambitious goals or more stringent regulations.

So in fact, they, that's the other, that's a commercial dimension.

They have an interest as a country to decarbonize.

They may also have an interest as a commercial entity to have ambitious goals because they are better prepared than other smaller, weaker registries.

I could go on about this, Happy to engage further, but I think we better stop.

But maybe Catherine, just let me address something that Paula asked about the Paula, you talked about regulation in the environmental side, but let me also talk a bit about regulation in digital side.

You see, the digital regulation is important not just for the maritime industry, it's for all economic sectors.

And I think what one thing that this pandemic has shown to the world is that digital economy is, is expanding at a very rapid pace.

And we are in fact remember from the lockdown to now, we are doing our banking online, increasingly more, buying online and healthcare online.

This is where we need data to be protected.

So a lot of countries are taking steps to do data protection, to have consumer protection, to have to set up the cybersecurity because I think there is a realisation the digital economy is here and it is here to stay.

So I think that's a matter whether it's a developing country or developed country, whoever.

But I think the trend is to prepare the regulatory systems for a lot more digitalization of economic activities.

And this is what we see.

Thank you for now you have a follow up or.

Yeah, Yeah, actually I just wanted to know also what the the role, maybe it's a question for for Jan.

But the role of shipping companies actually many of which are based here in Switzerland or you know, have are, yeah, they're, they're, they're groups here in in Switzerland that are responsible for many of the the elements involved in shipping.

So, you know, what is their role and how engaged have they been in this process of decarbonisation?

I'm talking about the private sector in this case, yeah.

So yes, OK, the the industry, the shipping companies, they care a lot about a level playing field.

They really want clear rules and multilateral rules.

So shipping companies are not so concerned about more ambitious, stricter with regulations at the IMO, they would be more concerned about regional solutions.

The International Chamber of Shipping has actually put forward a proposal of a small, they don't call it levy, they call it contribution.

But it is a, a first step, a mechanism that could potentially be, not everybody agrees, but it could be a first step towards a levy, a mechanism that actually charges for the emissions or, or for the burning fuel and for shipping and just emitting emissions.

So the shipping companies, some of them have been quite proactive.

The thing is in practise for most types of shipping, especially bulk shipping, is actually the shipper, the importer exporter who has to pay for the fuel.

So, and, and, but even there we have big strippers, users of transport services like Trafigura here in Geneva.

They have themselves come up with a very ambitious proposal of a carbon levy.

Their proposal is 250 to $300.00 per tonne of fuel.

While just to put it in perspective, the Internet term of stripping their proposal of a contribution is 60 to $0.70.

So you compare 60-70 cents with $350.00 per tonne of carbon.

In this case it's you multiply by approximately 3 to 1/2 per tonne of fuel because CO2 is 1C and 2O's and that is like 3 times more heavy than than what's in the fuel.

So I hope that wasn't too complicated or too technical.

But the shipping companies, they want a level playing field and they know that it is in their interest.

The IMO has goals.

They will be achieved one way or another.

And it's probably better to have a flexible approach, a goal based approach, goals or prices rather than technical obligations.

You must use this or that fuel, you must go at this or that speed, You must use this or that technology.

From that sense, the shipping industry, the FIB industry doesn't exist.

They're different companies, they're organisations.

But many in the FIB industry like the Global Maritime Forum, that's a getting to 0 Co different with the private sector, they have been quite proactive in this regard.

[Other language spoken]

The next journalist on my list is John Zanocostas.

Can we unmute John, please?

[Other language spoken]

You've been very patient.

[Other language spoken]

I was wondering, coming back to the seafarers, what message did Mr Kitui give to the Chief executives meeting on Friday, which was chaired by the UN Secretary General?

All the heads of UN agencies were there.

We've been hearing the same issue now for 6-7 months in the World Health Organisation everywhere.

So what is behind the paralysis in the UN family?

OK, let me tell you what our SG says and then I don't know if there's a paralysis in the UN family, but we will not.

Really sorry I have to no so I.

Think our AST from the beginning.

I think starting from about April, May is the first one in the **** level official in the UN.

And with the IMO, the Under Secretary General to go out and say that we need to designate seafarers and marine personnel as critical workers and they need they need to be exempt from travel restrictions, doesn't matter where their passport is from.

And this has been a steadfast message from our secretary general and it is being, you know, and then we have done a lot of analysis with ILO and IMO and ANKA to put numbers to this dilemma.

I think, you know, I mean, in all honesty, what this shows is that the whole world is not prepared to address a pandemic like this.

I think people simply didn't know what to do.

I think everybody's trying to figure out what to do.

I think that's where the paralysis is.

I think what we can do is to recommend and what we can do is to showcase good practises.

Like I know for example, Sri Lanka, it's a good practise where they let seafarers to disembark and then they go into a quarantine of two weeks and then they fly to their home countries.

So we see these good practises and what we have been doing is to highlight these practises and bring them to the, to the member States.

And ultimately it's the countries that make decisions, immigration decisions and you know, their port safety decisions.

We, we have the call of the SG goes back to April.

I, I need to find back.

I can't do it now, but I can send you the, the statement made by SG.

[Other language spoken]

Can I just come in and I know John personally, but this paralysis I could now get almost emotional and angry.

I've I've yesterday I started working at 5:00 in the morning and I had a meeting with this coordinated strategy in the maritime crisis with IMOI owned others in a three page document, quite a lot of concrete reaching out the UN is not paralysis.

We are working and reaching out to governments, to airlines, to airline association, to ports that control associations, concrete pro suppose it's coordination.

I'm sorry, it's not the Younis paradise.

It's it's governments, it's airports, it may be ports, it may be municipalities that everybody says, Oh no, I don't want to be the one to take on the seafarers and let the neighbour take them.

I'm sorry that I cannot leave the the the paradise in the system, no.

[Other language spoken]

I I can I have a follow please?

[Other language spoken]

Not sure John all.

Right, right.

[Other language spoken]

Please go ahead in, in, in the paralysis.

The UN is an interface with member states.

[Other language spoken]

If if what you're telling me now is basically all your advocacy is meeting a Stonewall somewhere.

Because seven months on with her Doctor Tedros talk in support of your organise of the Seafarers, Mr Kituya, as you mentioned earlier in March with the I/O IOM in London, IMO, sorry.

So who is blocking the this critical progress?

I mean you just we can't put it under the carpet.

They're they're essential workers, as you're saying 300,000 I think your report is mentioning had been affected.

So does it need to go to another to another level Question.

[Other language spoken]

Does it need to go to another level in terms of advocacy?

I think it would be, it would be nice if if you also the journalists also pick up the issue and make a big noise.

You know, it's only so much the United Nations can do because these regulations.

And the rules and regulations are not, you know, they are in the sovereign nation's purview.

So what we could do is to recommend, to give good practises and issue guidelines and it would be so good.

This is when we can work with the journalist staff to get the message out more.

We talk about it more, we make a noise more, we showcase the human tragedy more it will be heard.

[Other language spoken]

And Jan, I tell you.

[Other language spoken]

We have now Peter Kenny on line.

Yes, over to you, Peter.

[Other language spoken]

Catherine.

I would like to ask a question about the African figures and your.

[Other language spoken]

Says that African ports.

Have shown mixed trends in terms of impact and connectivity and you cite Lagos, Durban and Tangier connectivity were found to have coped well with.

The pandemic compared with other ports in the region, you also.

Say that this is despite.

[Other language spoken]

What do you mean by?

Blank sailings and why were these ports?

Able to cope well.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you, Peter.

[Other language spoken]

Anyone to take it up?

Yeah, I I would be happy to get back on some details afterwards.

In general, the the blank sailings is that basically in, especially in liner shipping, container shipping, you have regular schedules.

Unlike oil transport or dry bike, which is a port to port like a charter service.

Here you have like the TPV in Geneva or the Metro or the Tube in London.

You have regular schedules and if there's for some reason not enough cargo or the companies managed capacity, they skip a port course.

[Other language spoken]

They they have a schedule, but they leave you or standing at the bus stop or they leave the container standing.

This has been mentioned quite a lot.

We mentioned in our analysis, it is not a huge quantitative effect and it has been more on the main East, West routes like Europe, Asia, North America.

For the specific countries, we have a lot of detailed data about port call, it's time and port, the schedule, it's the number of companies, the number of services.

[Other language spoken]

I don't know out of my head right now what happened in Lagos, whatever which port.

But I would really be happy if if we connect and we can try and give specific answers on, on some specific questions.

Sorry if I cannot give more detail than what we filtered for you.

There was already some extra effort to go through the long report and say, now, what are the specific data?

And we complemented it with our, with our package, because the review is not just the book.

We have online statistics, we have the country profiles.

So there's a lot that can be looked up and we made some effort here.

But of course, you give some information and then it definitely questions pop up.

The Maritime transport country profile will be available tomorrow morning.

You will find them on the on the press releases after the embargo.

Unfortunately, it's not ready now, but tomorrow you have more details on on these figures.

Thank you very much.

[Other language spoken]

Shamika, do you want to conclude or Oh, Jan, just want to say thank you and thank you for being with us.

You know, I mean, it's not fun when you do this virtual stuff.

It's always good to see you all and to have a discussion.

But please, as Jan says, you know, if you have other further questions, reach out to us.

You know, behind this report is a is a, you know, a very solid group of experts.

They can give you more numbers.

They can give you much more detailed stories.

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And then, John, please also reach out to the rest of the world and put the messages out because you are a lot more powerful of advocacy than us.

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Thanks, Catherine.

Thank you very much.

Thank you all.

So the embargo is tomorrow morning, 6:00 AM GMT, 7:00 AM Geneva time.

The the team can also answer in several languages, so don't hesitate to ask and we're happy to give you more details on anything you need.

On Friday, I will give you more information on the upcoming the other upcoming reports until the end of the year.

Thank you very much.

Have another afternoon.

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