UNCTAD press conference 19 November 2020

Bonjour Ratos, welcome everyone.

The PW marks the like you said that the situation it is unpacked to the economy down point view the development.

So confirms the press Laura Porella community just for Susan Bargos, just get this Victor so far.

I will now switch to English.

I have the pleasure to welcome Doctor Kituyi Hung, that Secretary General to present this report and will then open the floor after his presentation for your questions.

So without any delay, Doctor Kituyi, over to you.

Thank you, Catherine, members of the press, Ladies and gentlemen, first, may I bid you welcome to these events today on the gasp of the roll out of the much anticipated and heralded vaccine for the COVID pandemic.

Anktad is releasing this report on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on trade and development transitioning to the new normal.

This report essentially argues that this is the right time to address the weaknesses of globalisation led to the rapid state of the virus across the world and it's very uneven economic impacts.

This report is the culmination of our last nine months of anchored effort to monitor the development impact of the COVID crisis, showing how globalisation has helped spread the virus but also must now play a part in its recovery.

We summarise our observations on how the pandemic has affected trade and development and interrelated issues in the areas of finance, investment, technology and sustainable development.

The report documents how the pandemic emerged as a health emergency that then spread among the major economies along the principal trade routes and transit corridors of globalisation, from East Asia to Europe and North America first.

But it also shows how the pandemic then catapulted into a global economic crisis that has disproportionately affected the poorest and most vulnerable, in particularly in the developing countries.

Due to the pandemic, we at ACTED are expecting the extreme poverty ratio to increase by nearly 70 million additional poor this year.

This is the first time that it will be a rise in extreme poverty since the financial crisis, the Asian financial crisis.

Out of this 70 million additional people living in poverty, more than 30 million of them we expect to be in sub-Saharan Africa and over 20 million in South Asia.

These numbers will nearly double globally to 1:30 addition of poor cumulatively by next year as the economic crisis persists in the developing world.

But it's more than the extreme poor who have suffered most from this effect.

While the health crisis has targeted older populations, especially men, it is the youth and women who are bearing the brunt of the economic crisis.

Countries with **** incidence of COVID have seen disproportionately **** rise in female unemployment, with women making up significant parts of the workforce in the tourism services and informal sectors mostly affected by this.

Not to mention the disproportionate number of women who are frontline health service providers in health facilities, in addition to them even economic impacts of the pandemic.

This report also documents then even national responses to the crisis.

We estimate that the typical developed country spending around 4.5% of GDP on additional expenditures and foregone revenues plus 5.6% of their gross domestic product on liquidity support.

By contrast, the typical least developed country can only afford far less just 1.9% of gross domestic product on additional spending and 0.6% on liquidity support.

Given the differences in population size and the size of the economies, this means that the typical developed country spends around 1400 U.S.

dollars per capita on direct fiscal stimulus, while the typical ADC can afford just $18.00 per capita and other developing countries around $78 per capita.

Liquidity support per capita in the typical developed and transition economies is around 350 times larger than that in the typical LDC.

That to avoid that these uneven impacts and uneven responses persist into the recovery phase, our report argues that we must transition to a new normal that reshapes global production and resets multilateral cooperation.

While the crisis has reversed some trade and development trends, it has accentuated others, and the better recovery must harness this momentum.

We are seeing new hopes that changes in behaviour that have taken place during the pandemic console the seeds of a fairer globalisation and a more resilient multilateralism.

The report benchmarks after these expectations for the better recovery called for by the United Nations as a whole.

The UN Secretary General has called for building back better from this crisis.

For what A better recovery.

He has notably called for double digit stimulus packages and greater multilateral cooperation.

And this report constitutes our answer to that call and describes what a better recovery must entail in terms of a better globalisation.

A better recovery needs to move forward on the new areas of consensus on development finance that have emerged in the discussion around sovereign debt and international equity, which originated in ACTED and the IMF's call for $2.5 trillion in additional audio SDRS and debt relief, including debt relief that covers multiple donor types and all developing countries, especially the valuable seeds.

A better recovery also needs to move forward on the new areas of consensus on development finance that have emerged in the discussion around sovereign debt and international liquidity, which originated in Acton.

A better recovery, sorry.

A better recovery also needs to harness the new, shorter, more regional and more digital value chains.

That will be the way of the future.

This crisis has accelerated the transformation in global production underway already since the last crisis.

While this may mean that future trade flows and FDI flows will stabilise at lower levels than those seen in the previous decades, that also means that there are new opportunities to harness the green and blue economies and the digital economy as the source of the diversification and domestic demand in developing countries.

Intensifying SS cooperation, especially through regional agreements such as Africa's, frequently the trade area, will be key in this regard.

A better recovery must offer new impetus for closing digital divides and reducing digital market concentration.

The leading technology platforms in the US and China have increased in market capitalization an average of around 40% since the start of this year, all while the door and standard at the poor have been slightly down or flat.

Now, this raises the prospect for a wave of mergers and acquisitions where the digital giants take over many of the SMEs that have fallen on hard times because of the crisis.

This could radically worsen market concentration and call for stronger, more concerted competition and consumer protection policies.

Finally, a better recovery might must also be greener and more environmentally sustainable.

Global CO2 emissions are on track to decline by 8% this year, the equivalent of 2.6 gigatons.

This is roughly the same reduction that is needed annually for the next 10 years to maintain progress to just a 1.5°C rising global temperatures.

Unfortunately, as the economic pain that has company accompanied the change reminds us, we are far away from being able to achieve that kind of progress in an equitable and sustainable sustainable manner.

Yet it is our hope that a shaped a reshaped global production system and a stronger, more resilient multilateral cooperation can help us all move in that direction.

As we move from COVID-19 response to COVID recovery, we at Entered will be working to ensure that the frailties of globalisation and the weaknesses of multilateralism that have intensified this crisis can be addressed through fruitful and constructive dialogue on these issues.

We very much look forward to continuing this discussion on what constitutes a better recovery as anchored Member States begin their preparations on the road to Barbados for Anchor 15 Conference.

And I thank you very much for your paying attention.

Thank you very much, Doctor Kituyi.

We are now opening the floor for questions.

[Other language spoken]

First question from Antonio Grotto, Spanish agency, news agency.

Can we unmute Antonio?

[Other language spoken]

Over to you, Antonio.

[Other language spoken]

Yes, very well.

[Other language spoken]

It's just a clarification on the figure of 130 million people who will be in extreme.

Is this the of 2020 and 2001 figures?

So that that doesn't mean that this year is going to be like 70 million more and 60 million more next year.

And also the report only has a distribute a regional distribution for this year of this new poverty.

Do you have a figures for for next year as well?

[Other language spoken]

There's a lot of noise.

I don't know, Doctor Kitty, have you managed to hear what the questions it was?

Well, well, I, I, I think I vaguely had some of the limits, yeah.

[Other language spoken]

Of that 130 million and yeah, projection over to you.

[Other language spoken]

First of all, you know that it's a an accepted reality in our projection that while the health pandemic may now be entering a recovery phase because of vaccines, we see the economic consequences, deterioration continuing.

For example, the continued collapse of the services, hospitality industry, air transport industry are features that are going to be with us long beyond the immediate term for the medium term.

And that's why we're projecting that the number in extreme poverty will continue expanding into the new year.

It's part of the health recovery that we are going to get underway.

As for figures for the new year, not because of the rapid changes in the data and we have been monitoring since much we see from it was a weekly change.

Now about the best monthly change on the dynamics of impact on investment on the the the geography of recovery.

For example, the significant strong recovery in China and Vietnam visibly the rest of the world.

We cannot sufficiently project these early on the the contours of the recovery to expect in a new year, but this is a living exercise.

[Other language spoken]

We'll continue updating the data and statistics and projections of what is happening as we go into the new year.

Thank you very much.

[Other language spoken]

Peter, over to you.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you, Doctor.

Katie, are you optimistic about the multilateral system because at the beginning of this pandemic we saw some debt relief for least developed countries, but that's was minimalist.

Can you foresee that there will be debt relief and how will you go about doing it?

What forum will you use to try to get this onto the multilateral global agenda to really free up these developing countries?

[Other language spoken]

First of all, we have shown even we actually present in this report in addition to our some of our publications in the course of this year that the crisis to multilateralism is by and large a pre-existing condition prior to the pandemic.

The pandemic may mark an Inflexion point, but the patterns of rising economic nationalism, fracturing of global value chains, paralysis in the rule making multilateral process were pre-existing the crisis.

There are some flashlights of some optimism.

The level at which IMF, World Bank, the G20 and OECD coalesced around, for example, debt service suspension initiative originating from the G20 and the extra stimulus, particularly expansion and the allocation of special drawing rights represented a form of international solidarity.

But it has not in any way galvanised a desire to resuscitate, to rejuvenate a rules based multilateral trading system.

Particularly so on the financial side you might see a lot more positive engagement, but on the trade side the the clouds are getting even lower, closer to us as a challenge.

So I don't see how to be optimistic, but one of the things that we've been arguing is that even the multilateral system will have to come out of this system, out of this crisis in a slightly different way.

We are seeing the rise of soft power and more consensus based rule making than the hard rules that have paralysed the multilateral system up to this stage.

Thank you very much.

I don't see any other question.

I would like to remind you, I give you 1-2 more minutes.

I would like to remind you that this report is under embargo until 5:00 PM GMT, so 6:00 PM Geneva time.

If there is no yes Peter follow up.

Yeah, I, I, I think you, you, you did say quite a lot about it, but can you just sum up and sort of say you are pretty pessimistic then about the outcome?

I will have a press conference when I can discuss my hopes and fears about my title process, but they were not a cornerstone for our launch of the report on economic recovery in the face of the the COVID pandemic.

[Other language spoken]

Stephanie, you have Reuters.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you, Reuters.

Stephanie Neighbour.

[Other language spoken]

Your the figures.

In your introductory remarks.

[Other language spoken]

What I saw from the press release was you're.

[Other language spoken]

Million being put, you know, additional.

[Other language spoken]

Poverty.

And then but in your.

[Other language spoken]

Referred to 70.

[Other language spoken]

Clarify that for me.

[Other language spoken]

Figures and then.

The time frame please.

[Other language spoken]

Our projection is that in the current year the the number of people falling into extreme poverty ratio that is the share of population living on less than 1.9 U.S.

dollars per day at purchasing power parity.

We expect it to increase to 70 million additionally this year.

And then the figure of 130 is a cumulative figure including this 70 million and additional falling into poverty in the course of the coming year.

So it's not like a doubling of the number with new ones from next year, but one third represents our projected cumulative for next year including the car over of the extreme poor of 2020.

[Other language spoken]

Over to you.

[Other language spoken]

Over to you.

[Other language spoken]

Yes, perfect.

Thanks there.

There are ongoing discussions at WTO on possible exemptions to IP, IP provisions in the TRIPS agreement.

So how do you value that and and can we measure the gain that could be brought to the development countries?

[Other language spoken]

All right, first of all, you know the the foundation of these has been the the TRIPS pathway on public health concerns as a basis for waving some provisions of IP rights.

What we see is treating the health side of things that there can be that waiver, particularly for necessary medications.

[Other language spoken]

How much it gains traction and what particular impact it will have.

I think the jury is still out, yeah.

But I think it's a step in the right direction, particularly now with the ravages of the economic, I mean the health end of of the pandemic.

[Other language spoken]

I don't see any new hands, raised hands, so I think we're going to stop here, except if I see one in the.

[Other language spoken]

Before we stop, I wanted to express my appreciation to my staff from all divisions and sections who worked very diligently on this report under these very difficult circumstances.

And also particularly single out my deputy Isabel, the home, the Deputy Secretary General, who was our in house coordinator of and driver of this initiative.

And we're very proud of the work that you did and thank you everyone for coming to this.

And I want to wish you well in these difficult times.

Thank you very much, Doctor Kituyu.

Thank you to all of you.

Of course, as RSG just said, there's a whole team behind this report.

So should you need any clarification or dig deeper into this report, they're all available.

So just let me know what you need and we will manage.

We'll try to to respond as quick as possible, as quickly as possible.

Thank you very much.

Have a nice afternoon and stay safe.

Bye, bye everybody.

[Other language spoken]