[Music]
so
[Music]
so
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
welcome everybody we're starting the
next session at the
globe sac conference the session where
we're going to be discussing
the future of trade and here with me on
stage i'm joined by wilhelm malter
chairman of the board of directors at
globsec thank you for being here
and we are joined virtually on stream by
cecilia marmstrom who is of course the
former european commissioner for trade
and now
saga rios and professor school of
business economics and law university of
guttenberg we're joined by henry wang
founder and president of the center for
china and globalization from beijing
thanks for being here
and susan denger chief executive officer
american chamber of commerce to the
european union
who is in brussels joining us from there
welcome to all the speakers and welcome
to all of you here in the room and
everybody who is following this stream
as before as uh maitrey and terry said
of course we are very much looking
forward to hear from you what you think
about the future of trade and the future
of global trade globalization
you can join us on the globe sag app and
send us your questions there i'm going
to have an ipad here with me i'm going
to be able to see them and bring them to
all of our speakers
here in the room and also joining us
online and
please share your questions your
comments whatever you want to
let us know what you think about such an
important
issue as global trade and the question
here is
has optimism been restored when it comes
to global trade and of course
the future of trade
and to start this session we were trying
to uh with the team with the globesec
team and we were looking for
for how to open that of course you
cannot
uh start with probably anything else
rather than the news agenda and of
course
the big u.s eu summit that's happening
now exactly at this very time in
brussels
this is huge this is the first uh the
first visit of president biden in europe
and of course he
arrived and his first message was that
the united states
is back and i'm gonna quote him here
when he
spoke about the the importance of
relations in the cooperation he said the
alliances
are not maintained by threats they're
grounded in democratic ideas
a shared vision for the future where
every voice
matters and of course there are so many
aspects and issues on the agenda when it
comes to biden's visit in europe to the
european union
and yet trade is
very much a make it or break it
situation miss mumstone what's your take
on that what's your take
and what do you expect for this optimist
to be restored or has it been restored
yet
well it's gradually getting there but of
course there's a lot of work to be done
globally also after the post covered
crisis but the fact that president biden
meets with his european counterparts is
good news um we will see what comes out
of it concretely there's always
already been leaks that there is a
solution or at least
the frame of a solution to the very old
conflict between the eu and u.s
on aircraft subsidies on boeing
and airbus this might sound technical
but it's a
conflict that's been going on for 18
years now and if there's a solution to
that
that is very good news i also hope that
they will discuss
the creation of a suggested trade and
technical
council which would be a forum where
trade issues could be discussed
global supply chains um issues in in a
broader sense a standard for instance
what to do with the lack of
semiconductors
how can eu and u.s cooperate further on
on standard
certificates impact assessment etc and
that is also something that
both partners especially business are
looking forward because it's always good
to have
views around the table and see what in
the future you can set
standards in cyber in
green technology and in emerging
technologies if we have a
transatlantic joint standard on these
services and goods it would be a good
thing for global trade and for trust
and then there's of course the the issue
of uh
tariffs on steel and aluminium that uh
president trump put on europe and many
other
partners or or countries of the world
and the eu
consider them as a illiterate and that
they should be lifted
we haven't heard anything from the
american administration on this yet so i
hope that at least there would be some
sort of
time framework rolled out for this
because this would be seen as a true
sign of a stronger
new relationship on the trade area well
i guess we're all looking forward to
hear what we're gonna hear just in about
a few hours probably from brussels and
from those meetings happening there
well um susan we discussed with you
the restored optimism just a couple of
weeks
ago and there was such a feeling of
completely
new agenda and the new situation now
what's your take with the
president biden there being in brussels
and having those negotiations with trade
very much on the agenda
yes yes good afternoon everybody indeed
i'm
i think the word is the optimism still
there sasha and and fellow panelists
i think um bearing in mind as i was
saying to cecilia earlier
i'm sitting here in brussels and there
are helicopters overhead quite a lot of
noise
out there may not be from the citizens
very positive but i think um
we can safely say there is a positive
mood of making progress
and not only is president biden here
which i think is a great sign in that
it's his
first his first overseas visit is to
europe
very positive sign but he's brought with
him as
many cabinet members as well so there
are quite a considerable number of
meetings going on it's just not
you know in the margins of that so big
feeling of optimism i think i mean i'd
have to agree with
um cecilia there with regard to
expectations you know there's still a
sense of realism i think the first step
is to rebuild trust
so optimistic that we're working on that
but we do need to still address
what was already mentioned what we call
the irritants they're not even
necessarily low hanging fruit but we do
need to address
aircraft subsidies yes the rumors out
that there's a solution on the table we
do need to address
section 232 i think there's a bit of
optimism but there's still some
stumbling blocks there so it's not a
given that we're going to be able to
address that
so i think with regard to optimism
unless we can address that i'm not sure
how
far forward we're going to move on the
other areas privacy shield is another
one we've got to address that
uh we need a sustainable system for data
transfers
and also wto but in in brief
um yes maybe i could just mention sasha
the three things that we'd expect to
that that point
we would like to see coming out of this
uh one
that both sides in this summit put
together measures for supporting
economic
recovery that has to go first i think
we're seeing that coordinate for example
and everything level travel restrictions
between
uh the us and the eu um the second one
is reducing the barriers to trade which
i mentioned but
it's more than that it's deepening
regulatory cooperation and i'm thinking
thirdly what we'd expect to see and
there is some optimism on that cecelia
referred to that with the trade and tech
council
absolutely we need to outline outline a
road map for emerging issues
for a green and digital future and i'm
sure we can elaborate on that further
thank you so much susan um wilhelm what
do you think about that because i've
seen you know
noting well i would say there is a lot
of reasons for
optimism but what is even more important
there is an
urgent need for restoring trade because
if you want to have a sustainable
recovery path
you need trade full stop because trade
is
really one of the fundamentals to
increase
let's say that the growth perspective
the job perspective for people around
the world
but thirdly i share susan's view it's a
hard work to be done
and we should have also a portion of
realism on that
what is the reason why i think it's it's
it's
it's it's it's at the right time for
being optimistic
first with biden administration
multilateralism seems to be back
and this is for me the key thing because
what happened with wdo
over the last 15 years is a terrible
thing
which was which was definitely hurting
global trade that means restoring the
strength of wto
is first and the critical element second
cecile had mentioned the question of a
global rule
we need a global rulebook for this let's
say trade agreements
and maybe this is worth to dig a bit
deeper into we have a lot of elements
for instance sdgs could be one of these
global role books because we have a
broad consensus amongst the global
community on that
and third i think we should concentrate
on a few
on a few aspects specifically
we have the climate agreement and
climate agreement can be a boost for
global
trade as we have also a joint fundament
on that
think for instance about sustainable
finance and the issue of taxonomy
this could bring also an additional as a
layer of certainty and regulation
think about the initiative of the g7 on
taxation of corporates this is a good
sign for me
cecilia has mentioned the data security
cyber security
this is an issue that affects everybody
and everybody
is definitely interested in that and one
of the lessons learned out of kovite 19
it's a pandemic full stop which needs a
global
answer and these i think are elements we
should concentrate on
really to do a step-by-step approach you
cannot
sort out everything in one shot
but if if you go for for this approach
and this european us approach
could be really the driver of of of
success also in
the rule setting which i think is one of
the key aspects of
creating trust was also mentioned in the
previous speakers
let's ask now let's go to henry wang
founder and president of the center for
china and globalization in beijing
uh mr wang how do you share this
optimism has it been restored
are we on the way there are we getting
there
well thank you thank you for inviting me
to this great event
and uh i think there is some uh optimism
there because uh with the world bank has
just recently released global
economic prospect report but basically
we see
a quick recovery uh from uh china u.s
european countries
and that is really caused by these trade
activities as well
we see the you know globalization and
global trade has been
basically a prosperity builder for the
last 75 76 years after the second world
war
we are avoiding the third world war
because we had
trade and that's really a fantastic
of build build up the
prosperity of the world now but we do
see the the
the challenges the deglobalization we
see populism
nationalism and all those
you know forces are playing in strong
but um
you know i think from my perspective uh
that we still
uphold the wto because uh
this has been now we have a new dj and
we have a
four dj now appointed including one from
china so we hope that w2 including on a
digital economy
on the trade facilitation and the
investment facilitation we can
build up the further uh mechanism for
rally the global trade and that's all
the old countries
efforts including u.s eu and china but
also second i think that the regional
trade is is booming as well china and
asean now become the largest trade
partner with china we just had
rcep which is one of the largest
free trade deal in the world now and uh
accounts about one third of the global
trade and global population
and and gdp probably but also we see
uh not too long ago uh china the eu has
reached a comprehensive investment
treaty even now we are facing some
challenges but i still hope that that
treaty is really enormous beneficial to
the europe european
companies we just had the eu
chamber of commerce contacted the server
in china with several hundredths members
most of them still wants to be in china
most of them are very profitable in
china and most of them
no not really anybody wants to get out
of this market so you can see
the big growing class 400 million
middle class could be 500 million in a
few years time it's going to be the
largest attractive market in the world
and then that could generate a great
trade
since china jumped w2 china's trade
export as a gang uh seven times
but china's import from the world has
gone up six times so it's a it's a
really uh uh mutually beneficial and you
see all the european companies including
u.s companies are very profitable
uh all major 45 countries are china so i
think the trade we need to really
sustain that and really getting this
pandemic
crisis out of the uh
deteriorating we have to uh you know
work our trade
and for example last year even during
the pandemic china european continental
train
has actually increased 50 times uh you
know almost the 12
000 dispatches of trains has been
from china to eu and eu to china so so
the problem now we still have a
protectionism
you know for example the uss trump
administration has levied about
360 billion uh u.s dollar
tax on china that is really great damage
to the to the u.s
business to the u.s consumers and not
good for the world so
so i think how we can really get back on
that when we see some
regional uh uh prosperity we have asked
it now we have
cp tpp and hopefully the
uk is one to the joint cptvp china also
expressed desire to join cptpp so we can
talk about all those trade issues
through the multilateral platform so i'm
still hopeful
that rational will prevail will
geopolitical
and cold war mentality cannot really
sustain because we have to avoid
the further you know geopolitical
disaster now we have to avoid the
pandemic disaster
we have to work together and i think
that is really
all the trade is about i mean it's such
a great thing that we need to continue
to
strongly support that but of course
there is very interesting news
agenda that's happening now as we are
speaking here we had the g7 meeting
then we had the nato summit that we are
now heading the eu us
summit right now in brussels and of
course when it comes to china this is
also very interesting aspect that
it comes to the g7 meeting and the nato
meeting yesterday uh
china was singled out in both
communiques and the leaders expressed
their concerns saying
over china's growing influence now we've
heard from beijing
accusing the g7 of political
manipulation and after it criticized
china over the range of issues now in
this situation
how to find that optimism and how to
restore that because
it might seem sometimes that when it
comes to the us
china and the new administration in
washington
that there is more uh optimism when it
comes to the u.s and eu cooperation
where is china standing there mr one
well well i think that that because i
think as time
goes on people will see the fact we see
the numbers
china is still the largest uh growing
economy in the world and uh
china contribute over one third of the
global gdp growth
china is the only country that in the
world is free to go anywhere there's
only a few cases a day
of covering coming up so so you see
i mean people will probably take some
time to get used to and
see that okay here's a different china
you know then we have a little different
system but they really i mean
it's like benjamin said doesn't matter
white cat black cat
let's not focus so much on the
ideological stuff
if this works for china if this actually
can lead to 800 million people out of
property
represent 70 percent of a global poverty
reduction
let it be so i think we need to probably
a mutual
understanding and china of course has to
do better and
narratives and communication like
president xiu said build a
credible lovable and trustworthy china
image as well i think we have a lot of
work to do on that but on the other hand
i don't think that
g7 countries or eu us
countries should really focus on china
as if we have an imaginary
rivalry of of some kind you know we're
all human beings we let's find the
common threads of
pandemic let's fight the kobe 19 and
also climate change
cyber security and all the other issues
not just uh
artificially creating some uh
uh geopolitical issues and and then
really we have an imaginary
rivalry and the last rally on that i
don't think that is really worked for
because we are already in the 21st
century
we are such so much intertwined china
already supplies the world and the world
really invests in china
well you know i mean all the european
car manufacturers sells more cars in
china than they are than
they ho and you know i mean
u.s company the same so why i mean why
can't we have this
you know this contradictory on the white
house we all have to do business
we need to need business uh to to trade
with china
but another on the other hand we will
you know downplay china or
imaginary china as a rivalry because
that doesn't make sense i think as time
goes on people will realize
china is okay china never signed any
soldier anywhere
never colonized any places never invade
any countries
china has a peaceful country that lasts
four decades thousands of years like
that
so we probably need time to accept
because it's a different culture
as a different history they may have a
different system we got to live with
that system
that's about finding that very balanced
and finding the new way of working
when it comes to the optimism when it
comes to global trade and the balance
between the european union the united
states and china
things have to be developed there
because this is you know when it comes
to the global trade we are talking about
the three
major players and this without any sort
of balance
between these countries it is impossible
to to have
too much of optimism what's your take on
that because of course this is a
situation that has been dragging on and
on and now when the global economy and
the global trade is sort of at a
crossroads
after more than a year of pandemic after
such a shock to the global economy in
global trade
what's your take on finding that balance
susan
yeah finding the balance so maybe just
to address on the on the china issue
there and finding that balance indeed
sasha um from the business point of view
i mean yes
mr wang stated it i mean we're so
intertwined
it's a global economy now there are
three big players
eu us china we all need each other
um china is eu's second major trading
partner
and for the eu sorry china
is the first and but we we need each
other
but the our take on this as business is
that we need to all sit down at the
table together
um indeed it's not a matter of um
fighting it out we need to discuss and
we're going to make
better progress if we engage with china
and and have a dialogue saying that
there are some big concerns in order to
find this balance i mean i think from
the u.s point of view i can't speak on
behalf of the us government
um but certainly it's about it it's a
bipartisan
issue in the us perhaps the only
bipartisan and there's a clear
agreement on the approach to be taken
there um
from the um the business point of view
as i said again we do feel very strongly
that we do need to address
issues of on what we consider unfair
trade practices
not market access intellectual property
we do need to work together to try and
make this
a level playing field so i think to
address that balance we need to do that
first of all i mean one obvious area
which we do need to address which would
is interlinked with some of the
discussions earlier is on the
steel and aluminium tariffs so if you go
back to the uh some of the trade
disputes
and the fact that these tariffs have
been put in place
um we want to get rid of these but the
real solution to this
is is addressing the sort of the global
over capacity
in steel and aluminium for that we do
need need to sit down at the table with
china and to address that so this this
would go a long way
to helping us sort of address some of
these challenges together so
i think overall sasha to address the
balance i mean there's no
easy answer but i'm going to bring up
the word
trust again and i believe that's such an
important
word whether it's the trust in the eu s
relationship
whether it's trust in the china
relationship but we do need dialogue and
we generally feel
we genuinely feel i should say we need
to sit down the table together and
engage all parties together to find
the solution to find that balance
ms malstrom i would like to also ask you
this question about
finding that balance and as susan said
to find that balance you've got to find
and restore and start with the trust and
then step by step going to finding that
balance what's your take on that
well it is a difficult but very
important
um journey to do this of course we have
some
some disagreements with the china in in
trade when it comes to over capacity
here when it comes to state-owned
enterprises
we have views on on human rights
issues that are also affecting our
relations
but we also realize in europe that china
is
is a partner it's an economic partner we
are trading with china we want to trade
with china we want to work with china to
reform
the wto system we have actually made
some
uh some some joint proposals in the wto
to try to reform the system we are
working together
china u.s eu and several other countries
to see if we can find agreement
in what we call plurilateral agreements
meaning agreements with a lot of
countries but not all of the wto
countries
when it comes to e-commerce for instance
when it comes to
uh to fish fishery subsidies
i hope that we can take out of the
closet and agreement that was almost
half done
on environmental goods agreement that
would be very good in the climate
work to take away tariffs on on
climate-friendly goods and
technology and we need of course to to
to work with china in the whole climate
area so there are
profound differences there are some
tensions but there are also areas where
we have joint interests to work together
and i hope that we can find this
at this balance in in you know in an
open and frank way
yeah but when it comes to the profound
differences and when it comes to any
cooperation on international level there
will always be those profound
differences right that's about like
building them and finding that
compromise between them we've seen
um miss malstrom you've seen yourself
being in the commission some of the very
profound differences with the previous
u.s administration as well so
it's always about that it's always about
finding that compromise
but about finding that compromise it's
also about rethinking a little bit when
it
trusts of course but it's also about
rethinking probably um
the global trade and sometimes when it
comes to
globalization and the new sort of
approach when it comes to trade what do
you think about that wilhelm
well first of all on the issue of the of
the big three
that's a that that's a given you need an
agreement between the ua
the u.s the european union and china but
this is not sufficient
the world is just bigger than the three
you have
other economies like india the emerging
countries we need them on the table
because we talk about global trade and
we are not talking about the trade
amongst us
we just secondly
therefore i think to to invest into
strengthening the wto is for me a key
issue because wto is the global rule set
and wto is also created or has been
created
in sorting out or for sorting out
difficulties if they exist and they
exist
by definition but i think there is a
matter of urgency behind
kovid showed us how urgent it is to act
globally if you have global troubles
go for digitizing the economy and the
digital transition this is by definition
a global approach because technique is
defining the road and not politics
that's the truth to be quite honest of
the matter
and climate is the third if you want to
achieve a global agreement
on climate you need also to integrate
trade and i think these are the concrete
examples where you can make
concrete pro process and this is also
the hope that the us administration is
not back on multilateralism just
not back on wto and trade just but also
back at the climate agreement the paris
agreement
and this is a strong these are strong
pillars i think
we should contribute because without a
joint initiative on trade
you cannot achieve the targets neither
on climate
nor on sustainability nor anything else
but you have to take
everybody on board it's a global
dimension
and we have also responsibilities for
countries in africa for instance we
should not think just about
us we should think globally and we have
to act globally then
one last sentence there is a word there
is a word floating around that concerns
me a bit now
that's called strategic autonomy
because with the word strategic econo
autonomy
you can i would say find a lot of
reasons why you are deviating from
from from from globals it means also the
understanding of how vulnerable we are
on the value chains
this we have seen in the current month i
think it
comes for me for the close that says
everybody is
interested finally in global trade
because everybody is benefiting from it
everybody is indeed but of course as you
said and as the speakers who are joining
us online said this is such a
massive issue that has so many aspects
and components into that and it's all
about finding this
uh this dialect between each other and
also as you said finding that not only
among the big players but also
maybe smaller players developing
countries and and other
and others who participate because
without them as well this won't be
possible
i would like to see we have questions
from the audience
here so if you do have a question would
you raise your hand because i could
definitely carry on
if you raise your hand i'm going to be
able to see you
not yet on reforming the w-2 let's go
there a little
bit i know it's also such a huge uh
conversation to have but
let's try mr wang what's your take on
when it comes to the reforming the world
trade organization
i know unfortunately we don't have the
whole session now to discuss it but just
briefly what do you think about that
well i think this is really a great
topic i i i think that uh
you know wt is the bad rock of of the
you know prosperity of the trade of the
war we should strengthen that i i'm glad
that the u.s has passed a new
dj's appointment and and now we have the
new team
so the most important thing i think we
should really get
the adapter in action i mean we're
expecting the
mc12 minister meeting will happen this
probably later this fall
but i really hope that we can make some
concrete the progress on that
for example i mean on this uh we
mentioned about uh you know digital
economy
e-commerce there's a political uh
discussion on that
and also there's a discussion on trade
and investment facilitation
uh a political meeting on that and also
we have a discussion on the unofficial
subsidy and agricultural subsidy on that
and then and now also we have the
emission of the of the plastic into the
ocean uh we should
abandon that as well so let's have some
lower hand food let's reach some
concrete results and then let's give
people confidence on that
also on the digital economy the digital
currency
now in china you don't need the cash
anymore everywhere you go just swap your
mobile and what about the in the future
let's
can we have a global digital currency on
that so there's many many
new issues new challenges we have to
face and wt is falling behind and it
says don't go wrong there's no major
achievement
and it's high time we really have the wt
in place so that we can build back some
confidence
i totally agree we should build up the
trust i mean
the pandemic is not helping the
situation we've been isolated for a year
and a half almost two years we don't see
each other
i'm glad that g7 first time the the top
lead
face you know person in person let's
have g20 on that let's have a break
something on there let's have
all the global leaders meet and talk and
rather than you know just a shorty match
across the oceans
so we really need that i really think we
need that
thank you so much uh susan what's what
do you think about when it comes to
reforming the wto i know again this is
such a massive conversation that we
could have for hours and hours
fortunately we don't have that time but
like briefly what what's your take
i spoke myself to the head of the wto
just like last month and
she said interestingly it's about of
course we've seen globalization then
we've seen
for certain reasons sort of a setback
but now what we have to think is about
re-globalization when it comes to the
global trade
yeah i mean absolutely it goes without
saying as a chamber of commerce
representing u.s business um if we
didn't have the wto we would have to
invent it
um so that that's the take we have
you we need to restore it i think it
came up briefly earlier
absolutely i mean reformer is needed i
think i think everyone agrees that
reform uh is one of the most essential
first moves that we'd actually have sort
of
sort of three sort of practical
suggestions actually
for the wto one is the plurilateral
element
indeed you know introduce uh a
plurilateral talk so this
is we need to speed things up um they
should be given a greater role in the
negotiations
uh another area that we think could be
addressed would be to give a
give a greater role to the secretariat
in terms of the monitoring role so they
can
governments have a better way of
submitting notifications to the wto
and thirdly of course probably the one
that we hear most about is the dispute
settlement mechanism
we desperately need to reform that
to look at it we need the us on board so
that is again if you go back to the
summit
what we do need is for u.s leadership
there
to agree to have the appellate body
restored
now how quickly this can be done we
don't know uh wilhelm mentions
urgency absolutely urgency is needed we
know there's a ministerial at the end of
the year
so um hopefully um that will be done but
um definitely i mean i think another
aspect that perhaps perhaps hasn't come
up yet is sort of perceptions as well
and the overall narrative about
multilateralism about globalization you
mentioned re-globalization
sasha absolutely i mean i think it
relates a little bit to the point made
about
strategic autonomy and so forth we have
a big job on our hands still
with regard to this with selling the
need for trade
um showing its benefits therefore
showing the benefit benefits of
multilateralism
um so if i refer back to the strategic
autonomy piece
absolutely understand why in different
areas of the world and including the eu
now this is a term that's coming up
but it needs to be open um that's that
the emphasis needs to be on the word on
open strategic autonomy keeping supply
chains open
but we also have a lot to do with regard
to public perception on this
um both in terms of countries need to
know
citizens need to know that they have
their sovereignty but they also need to
know
that multilateralism and trade is of
benefit to them too
that's great wilhelm would you would you
briefly add something on that before i
move to the
to the audience question i fully share
susan's view
and this is for me one of the key takes
we should start with what's the benefit
of global trade and who is the
beneficiary
but if we talk about that we have also
to talk about
are there losers do we have something to
do to to to avoid
let's say some critical elements that's
like transition and digital in the
digital agenda it's the same
tell the truth but tell the story
and look to it was leonard reid in in
1958
this was exactly when global trade was
restarted
after world war ii he wrote the story of
the pen
you know what the story of the pen is a
little children has a pencil
in his hand and he wrote the story
where is this pencil coming from
this was the graphics this was the wood
this was everybody who was making in it
and the pen as such was the story of a
global success
make it practical make it
really practical for the for the people
that's the first thing and second
i would go into the details of of of the
reform of wt
maybe reform is not the proper word
restore i would call it but it's not wto
just
i think this is a fundamental issue that
goes for wto
that goes for who for all multilateral
organizations and if we learn something
out of the pandemic we need
global organizations simply to fight
global challenges
and this common understanding i think
this gives me the reason for being
really again the optimist that's good to
know and following on that
we have been receiving the questions on
the globe sec
app from the audience and from everybody
joining these conversations online and
the one that i want to bring up now is
coming from oksana kuzyaki from ukraine
and i want to ask all of the speakers
this question you can now
see you can now see that does the fear
of possible future pandemics
mean that free trait as we know it
before this pandemic
can no longer exist and something
must change miss malmstrom
something must change
well i think we need to remember that
during the pandemic apart from the first
initial
weeks where people in panic were
stocking up
toilet paper and pasta and so on but
there has been food
in our stores we have had commodities to
buy
companies have had some supply problems
of course because of the pandemic and
ships that couldn't leave the harbors
but it has all it has worked so trade
has worked during the pandemic
and it will as has been said before be
part of the solution to the economic
recovery
as well now it will change a little bit
and uh
without without attaching too much
importance to the
uh open strategic autonomy
i think this is a jargon that companies
have already started to adapt to some
some many global companies have already
started to diversify a little bit
to become less dependent from one
supplier when it comes to very
specific materials or raw materials or
medical supply they have started to
build up resilience
and they have been more flexible they
know they have learned a lot from this
pandemic so this will of course mark
trade in in the future but we should by
all means
not respond to the pandemic with
protectionism because we need each other
more than
than ever but i can understand that many
countries feel the need
to stockpile basic medical equipment and
so on
for for for the future uh for future
pandemics or similar events
but we have needed globalization has
worked we have been able to buy
supplies and equipment from each other
and they would be really pity if we
destroy those
supply chains but a little bit more
diversification a little bit more
flexibility
a little bit more uh resilience building
that's what we have stopped what we're
starting to see among companies and that
will probably continue but that should
not lead to protectionism
thank you so much we just have a couple
of minutes there uh mr wang what's your
take on this question about something
must change because of everything that
happened in the world
with the pandemic and the future risks
of that very briefly please
yeah i think that uh if anything has to
be changed
we need more trade we need the heavy
trade and more investment
because if we cannot have a tourism for
example because people don't travel
tourism accounts 10 percent for global
gdp if we lose that
if we don't have the airline industry we
need more actually trade
to sustain us all together so so you can
see you know i mean this uh this trade
that china's uh
had the balance of the buildings of a
mosque and the ventilators
around to to help each other we we also
import a lot of
agricultural products from u.s you know
we need that more so
so i would say trade probably will you
will strengthen the
uh the people's confidence in fighting
pandemic and future pandemics too so
uh ricardo david ricardo's competitive
advantage will never go
out of date everybody does his own let's
exchange through trade
and we all benefit from that thank you
so much susan
we i sort of agree with the previous
speakers maybe to add to that
absolutely no protectionism i think that
was actually proven at the beginning of
the crisis when actually you saw it
coming in and people sort of retracted
in and
x and borders started closing so i would
say in that respect there was a big
learning curve
uh export no to export controls uh note
of restrictions because actually what
happened it what it showed
was how interconnected we sir are so
much it didn't mean
oh we should be producing everything in
our own countries actually no
maybe the supply chains indeed need to
be more resilient but
that's just for think about raw
materials we're seeing that now with the
vaccines
you know the borders came down uh oh
let's let's let's stop uh
exporting vaccines if you do that you
haven't got the raw materials to make
the vaccine so i think
does it need to change know what needs
to change is a bigger understanding of
how independent we are
i think actually some words that come
out sasha are actually we need to be
for more unity that proved to work it
showed that we needed to cooperate
worldwide uh it showed that we needed
leadership
and i'm going to come back to my word
again of trust we need to we need to
build trust and we need to
cooperate on an international level
because the williams point
this is global and the world is within
we're in a
massive um also no we need so
change no we need to learn from this
crisis
thank you susan wilhelm very briefly
well i would say first of all
trade is a key pillar for recovery for
everybody in the world simply to have a
strong and sustainable economy
needs strong trade second protectionism
is not the solution for none of the
issues we have
which means thirdly we have jointly to
think about
how we make a value chain our supply
chains less vulnerable
because we have seen that we are not
totally well equipped in managing
critical issues like the pandemic and i
can
assure you this will be not the last
the last experience we will gain and
fourth point
we have to invest into trust building
and establishing common global rules
not to underestimate the differences but
to concentrate
also on the joint on the joint issues at
the targets we have and we have a lot of
them
cyber security climate i have mentioned
them and there is a lot of reason to
invest
all our capacity we have well the key
word here the one that i think from
from this session one of the keywords
that would go into the word cloud would
be trust because this is something that
we've heard the most
from all the speakers thanks so much for
all of you for participating
thanks for joining us online for all the
speakers all the participants who are
asking questions
i wish we could bring more of those
thank you very much wilhelm uh
there are some refreshments that are
available downstairs and the next
session here in this room will be at
2 30 and the subject will be in how we
rebuild after covet and i'm going to be
back in the same room just before five
o'clock this afternoon for this session
with the chancellor of austria with the
prime minister of the slovak republic
and the deputy prime minister
of the czech republic