High-Level session: Building and Financing Resilient and Sustainable Global Supply chains and the Role of the Private Sector

Global Supply Chain Forum addresses zero-emission maritime shift and financial solutions for resilience

The Global Supply Chain Forum, held at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, served as a critical platform for stakeholders to engage in dialogue on the complexities and future of global supply chains. The forum brought together a diverse group of policymakers, industry experts, and thought leaders to discuss sustainable practices, the role of the private sector, and the importance of financial solutions in enhancing supply chain resilience.

A central theme of the forum was the maritime sector’s shift towards a zero-emission future, with discussions focusing on the opportunities and challenges this transition presents, particularly for developing countries. The potential for these countries to produce zero-emission fuels from renewable energy sources was highlighted, along with the need for supportive policy measures and private investment to realize this potential. Concerns were raised about the high cost of capital and the scale of projects, which can be daunting for developing economies.

The private sector’s involvement in strengthening supply chains was another key topic. Participants recognized the need for leveraging technology, risk management, and infrastructure financing. The use of blockchain platforms, supply chain analytics, and insurance mechanisms was identified as crucial for increasing transparency and predictability within supply chains.

The forum’s final session focused on finance solutions, where representatives from various regional development banks and financial organizations shared their experiences and strategies. The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) discussed its role in providing financial support, technical assistance, and fostering partnerships to strengthen SMEs and improve the business environment. CAF, the Development Bank of Latin America, highlighted its innovative financing instruments and technical assistance grants aimed at complementing investment and fostering innovation.

IDB Invest, the private sector arm of the IDB Group, emphasized its ‘Originate to Share’ model, advocating for collaboration with other financial institutions to maximize impact. They offer a range of financial products tailored to businesses involved in trade, with a strong focus on digital transformation, climate change mitigation, and gender diversity.

The African Export-Import Bank (Afrixim Bank) shared its success in facilitating vaccine acquisition through pooled resources and extended its approach to the Caribbean. The bank introduced its trade link solution, which supports SMEs by advancing funds against approved invoices, enhancing their capacity to engage in the supply chain.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) provided a global perspective on infrastructure financing, noting its commitment to Paris Agreement-aligned investments, including the financing of ports, airports, and vessels, and the need for additional assessments to ensure environmental goals are met.

In his closing remarks, Avinash Persaud, Special Advisor on Climate Change to the President of the IDB, highlighted three critical challenges: the proliferation of Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanisms (CBAMs), strategies to retain value-added processes within exporting countries, and attracting investment into developing countries despite foreign exchange risks. He called for urgent strategic responses to capitalize on the significant opportunity presented by the impending green transformation.

The forum concluded with a consensus on the need for multi-faceted approaches involving policy, private sector innovation, and financial support, all aimed at fostering sustainable and resilient global trade practices. The discussions revealed a sense of urgency and a call to action for strategic responses to the global economic and environmental challenges ahead.

Belle Holder:
of the Prime Minister and is next door to us here at the Lord Erskine-Sandeford Centre. For our next session, we call to the stage Miss Liza Castillo, Senior Director, Partnership on Sustainable Low-Carbon Transport from SLOCAT. Mr. Abdullah Al-Munifi, Vice President of the Commercial Business, Mouwani Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Mr. Bud Darr, Executive Vice President, Maritime Policy and Government Affairs. Mr. Maximo Quibranza Mejia, President of the World Maritime University. Mr. Anthony Ault, Chief Executive Officer, Goddard Enterprises Limited Executive Committee, CARICOM Private Sector Organization. And Miss Joanna Christensen, Chief Executive Officer, Global Maritime Forum. Can you please join us on the stage? This session will be moderated by Mr. Leo Nott, Deputy Executive Director, Caribbean Maritime Forum. As we stand by to begin the next session, ladies and gentlemen, I’ll remind you that immediately after things wrap up here at the Lord Erskine-Sandeford Centre for day one of the Global Supply Chain Forum, we’ll be heading next door to the official residence of the Prime Minister at El Arb. Adelaro Court for the official reception which begins immediately after this. It will be a wonderful occasion to continue to interact with your peers and perhaps meet those whom you have not met as yet and of course get the opportunity to experience some of the wonderful talent that Barbados has to offer in terms of our musical talent and cultural showcase. I also want to acknowledge the presence of Dr. Patrick Antoine, CEO of CPSO. Ladies and gentlemen, I will now hand over to the moderator, Mr. Leo Knott, Deputy Executive Director, Caribbean Export Development Agency.

Leo Naut:
Good afternoon everybody. I’m glad to be part of this panel. I really want to thank UNCTAD and the government of Barbados for enabling this participation. We’re definitely honored to moderate this supply chain solutions and public-private partnerships cooperation. Again, my name is Leo Knott. I’m the Deputy Executive Director of the Caribbean Export Development Agency and where we focus is on championing business growth through trade and development with our head office here in Barbados and a sub-regional office in the Dominican Republic. As part of the work that we do in Caribbean Export, we’ve definitely witnessed firsthand the pivotal role that collaboration across sectors and stakeholders can have in navigating the complexities of supply chain challenges that mostly affect the private sector and specifically affect MSMEs. Today we’re going to gather and hear from the private sector, which includes academia, non-NGOs, multinational corporations and regional stakeholders to really discuss and see what are their perspectives in overcoming supply chain challenges. Each perspective is crucial, offering nuanced approaches or solutions. and definitely their own take on how do we move forward and carve out a path towards development. In the last panel, we saw how interconnected our world is and how the challenges we face are not just isolated. It is imperative that we craft a comprehensive approach that, yes, tackles our immediate needs, but also builds a resilient future. And with that, we’re gonna start our first question. I would like to first introduce Ms. Joanna Christensen, Chief Executive Officer of the Global Maritime Forum, an international non-for-profit organization committed to shaping the future of global seaborne trade to increase sustainable long-term economic development and human well-being. Joanna, from the perspective of the Global Maritime Forum, what action-oriented solutions are you proposing to address challenges in the global supply chain, and what do you feel is needed, or what is your approach for implementing these solutions while promoting a sustainable and resilient supply chain?

Johannah Christensen:
Thank you so much. Is this on? I can’t tell. Okay, great, thank you. Well, thank you so much for your question, Leo, and I’m gonna actually spitball it a little bit on that question, if that’s okay. That’s what we’re here for. I was partially inspired by the intervention of Arsenio this morning, the Secretary General of the IMO, who really talked about the opportunities that are inherent in the transition of the maritime sector to a zero-emission future, which is one of the topics on the agenda today, and the potential benefits for increased resilience that are part of this transition as well. I think what the… The starting point for this was this is going to be a costly transition, but as in many sort of potentially disruptive or in periods of disruption, there are both big risks, big costs, but there are also big opportunities. And there are two opportunities in particular that I’d like to highlight. So the first opportunity is that many countries around the world, including a lot of developing countries, have an enormous opportunity to produce the zero-emission fuels that shipping will need in the future. So for shipping to transition to a zero-emission future, which is maritime shipping to transition to a zero-emission future, which is sort of the goal that has been set by the IMO in its revised greenhouse gas strategy, it will depend on the development and production of large quantities, and Bud can give me the exact figures, of zero-emission fuels over a period of the next very big amount of zero-emission fuels that will be needed over the coming decades. And the vast majority of these will be based on renewable energy of these fuels. And so this presents the single greatest opportunities for countries that have renewable energy potential, which many, many developing countries have. And so there are countries such as Morocco, Mauritania, Namibia, Mexico, Colombia, many, many countries from the least developed to middle-income countries around the world that have this potential that needs to be unlocked. Of course, there are barriers to realizing this potential, and some of it has been touched upon already today. The cost of capital in countries like this, in some countries even the size of the projects outweigh the national economies affected. effectively, making it very difficult to price risk, but I trust there’s going to be a panel subsequent to this one that’s going to be talking about climate finance and financing in resilience, so I hope they will touch upon this. But one area that we’ve looked at specifically is working with industry to try and find ways to unlock this opportunity by signaling demand effectively. And the way we’ve approached it is by looking at green shipping corridors as a vehicle. It was touched upon by the minister from Fiji as well in the previous panel, and it’s one way of looking at a more confined system, if you will, looking at specific demand in a specific trade lane, for example, and using that as a mechanism to figuring out, okay, how do we match supply and demand? How do we make this opportunity bankable so that private investment can flow in and realize some of these projects? The other major opportunity, and that’s really also related to the work at the International Maritime Organization, really is related to policy. And there I would really implore countries that are represented at the IMO to use their voice to advocate for policy measures at the IMO to support this transition. For me, it really resonated, the comments from Prime Minister Motley this morning about the cost to everyday goods here in Barbados, and the way that the costs went up over the course of COVID, and the impact that that has on an economy like and on everyday people’s lives here in Barbados. But those costs can be mitigated. Any economic measures that Arsenio also touched upon can potentially raise funds that can be used to mitigate some of those negative impacts. And so we need to understand We need to work together to understand what are those impacts, how can they be mitigated, but it’s an opportunity also to use revenue to make other investments into infrastructure, into ports, into energy infrastructure, into logistics, into the capacity, the capabilities that are needed. So there’s just abundant opportunity in that sense. I know there are many challenges as well, but there are opportunities as well. So I really hope we can use some of our time to talk about those.

Leo Naut:
Definitely. Well, at this time, I’d like to introduce Dr. Patrick Antoine, who serves as the Chief Executive Officer and Technical Director of the CARICOM Private Sector Organization Secretariat. Dr. Antoine, from the perspective of the CPSO, what action-oriented solutions are you looking to address in global supply chains? With the opportunities that Johanna talked about, where do you see that placing in the Caribbean private sector?

Dr. Patrick Antoine:
Thanks a lot. Thank you very much. I want to say it’s a pleasure to be here with the panel, and particularly to touch on the very important issues of the opportunities that have come out of the experiences from COVID. I think for me, there’s been a lot said in the forum so far, but I want to talk about economic incentives. And I think the lesson that the private sector learned, was able to demonstrate, and the things I want to talk about, really highlight the importance of economic incentives. The question is, how do we create them where they don’t exist? How do we use economic incentives to bring the private sector on board with the public sector? in many instances. The second thing I want to say is that the Caribbean private sector did extremely well during COVID. The private sector, because of economic incentives, they were able to source differently. That’s the issue of sourcing from outside of the region by diversifying their sources of purchasing. But they were also able to learn and to work with their CARICOM partners to source internally. It’s not a popular message, but there are very many industries in CARICOM which are coming out of COVID, recognize that economic incentives did exist, and as a result, intraregional production and by extension exports have increased for those. We also learned the importance of understanding the markets that we operate in. And I think the third thing, again, because of economic incentives is that we recognized that it was not always the case that transferring or purchasing from point A to point B, those supported by the trade was necessarily the best lesson from the logistics side. And I think that touches with the point that we heard earlier where I think Jeffrey Hall made the point that we needed to look at the ways in which we were able to expand our regional space, to enlarge the space in which we operate and thrive by looking at the policies that create economic incentives. And I want to touch on that one a little deeper because in CARICOM, many of our rules in our common market do not allow what we call production integration. And I want to explain that for many industries, this has in fact been difficult to expand intra-regional production for extra-regional trade. We do not have rules, for instance, that talks to outside of Jamaica. free zones, special economic zones. And as a result, we’ve lost many opportunities from the assuring. The economic incentives are there. What needs to follow is now in fact, government policies and government actions. What has the CPSO done? The CPSO at the invitation of heads begun this initiative of 25 by 25, just before COVID. We’ve worked on investment business cases and we’ve achieved quite a bit of success in many instances. One industry born from that, though not agriculture, but feeding into agriculture is the expansion of chlorine. We were able coming out of COVID to learn that the region needed to safeguard its own supplies of critical inputs, such as chlorine. And as a result, what has happened is that we’ve been able to work with this private sector entity in putting new arrangements in place that now allows this entity to supply all of CARICOM’s markets. And today, they are looking at exporting. What have we learned? We’ve learned that if the incentive is there, governments now need to make some space for the private sector to work with them. And I’m talking about ports. And I’m also talking about the issue of how we deal with working in the spaces, not replacing the private sector, but working with the private sector, which takes me to shipping. We have a mandate from the heads to work on maritime transportation. We need to understand what that mandate is. That mandate is not to displace the players that are in the market. That mandate is to work in the spaces that exist. How does that relate to where we’re coming from as states? During COVID, many of the liners, such as Tropical, actually worked with many of the small operators and schooners in CARICOM in making connections to the small countries, which are remote and would not have been supplied. What does that teach us? If we’re able to work in the spaces by creating public-private partnerships, And in many instances, financing them. What we’re going to have is, in fact, a value chain and a supply chain that is more robust and more resilient. Why do I say that? Because by working with these small producers in the small countries to and from, we were able to assist in CARICOM what are small and micro producers. Who are they? In CARICOM, they comprise between 70% and 80% of all enterprises. They account for between 60% and 70% of GDP. And they account for 50% of employment. In short, again, supply chains can become a lot more resilient if we work in the spaces. Because by doing that and connecting players who otherwise would be disconnected, what we do is, in fact, leading to what we all want to see on our development of our strategic development goals. Thank you very much.

Leo Naut:
Thank you very much, Dr. Antoine. And when looking, particularly when looking at that expansion of the space, we can think of CARICOM. But we can also, we had Curaçao here. And we had Martinique. We had the Dominican Republic. We look at this vision of the greater Caribbean. And those are where we line those opportunities in that end. I would like to take this now to, particularly to Bud Darr, who is the Executive Vice President for Maritime Policy and Government Affairs of MSC Group. As the large shipping and logistics company here in the panel, I did want to get and pick your brain on those solutions, particularly for supply chain challenges and overcoming them. And also thinking with the opportunities that Johanna mentioned.

Bud Darr:
Great. Thank you. And it’s really a pleasure to be here today. And we’re not bad people. We actually are really good people. people. We serve the world’s trade needs. I mean, we exist to be a conduit for world trade and our networks will do what world trade needs us to do, whether it’s on a micro level or a macro level. But when it comes to smaller population sort of regions or regions where the ports are a long ways apart from each other, a lot of times it doesn’t suit itself so well to the large carriers and it ends up being smaller carriers that serve that niche. But before I talk about supply chains, I just want to make a couple of comments about decarbonization because it’s incredibly important and it’s going to impact all of us. I believe we will decarbonize. We will meet the target. My company’s fully committed. We’ll make net zero by 2050. I believe the industry will. We do need, though, the proper regulatory framework to allow the flexibility we need to have a variety of fuel choices available to do that and also to help keep us on the trajectory so that we will have the right timing to get there. And that’s the big role that regulations can play. Joanna said some things I thought were quite insightful, one of which is the opportunity that lies for many developing countries to actually kind of turn the world upside down as far as fortunes go with energy because some of the conditions that are required for the renewable energy to produce these fuels we’re going to need lie in developing countries. It’s a tremendous opportunity and I think it’s a tremendous opportunity to band together within a region to do that. And maybe you don’t ship all of it out of one, out of all the ports. You pick hubs and maybe you work together collaboratively on projects and leverage the best that you can bring together as individuals and be stronger as a group. Honestly, that’s the way we kind of have to run our businesses because to survive the down cycles in the market you have to have scale and collaboration in order to survive that or you’re not around to see the next up cycle. And that’s one of the reasons You saw so much consolidation, particularly after the markets crashed in 2008, and there was very little demand for our services, a big credit crunch, and we have a very capital intensive business. One other thing I’ll say is all of the major proposals in front of IMO right now include an economic measure that takes into account that there needs to be some allocation to developing countries. I mean, it’s reasonable, it’s rational. How much that is, I don’t know. That’s going to be a decision for governments, not for the industry to make for sure, but you do have to keep in mind that one way or another, the end user of the services, whether it’s our customer directly or whether it’s their customer that may be a consumer, is ultimately going to see some increased pricing over that that is ultimately going to fund that. So there’s a limitation to how far I think governments want to go because one way or another that money isn’t going to come out of thin air. It’s going to come from the market, and the market ultimately affects prices that consumers and business customers and governments see over time. So I do think there needs to be part of that as a solution. How much it is, I’m not sure. That’s really a political decision, but it is rational. Let me just talk briefly about supply chains. I don’t want to take up too much of the time. If you gave me all day, Joanna’s right, I would take it. But a couple of things that I think you need to keep in mind, and we’ve heard some themes about this already. When you think about a single ship or a single service loop, when you think about liner shipping, which is boxes basically for the most part, you have to think of it as a network, a holistic network of services that work together. And when there’s a failure in one part, whether that’s severe weather disruption or congestion disruption in China, or whether it’s a group of non-state actors have taken over completely a vital seaway and shut it off to the rest of the world, or whether it’s a global pandemic, we have to have the flexibility that it takes to modify those networks. And if I take a ship out of wood loop. Well, that loop suffers. I’ve got to figure out what to do with it. So you can’t pull one brick out of the stack without affecting the rest of the brick. So you have to think about it being interconnected. We’re seeing it right now. We saw it during the pandemic. And for a miracle I still almost can’t conceive, the global economy kept working during the pandemic. Despite all the difficulty and congestion and the spot rates going as high as they did, everything that needed to move ultimately did move. And I think I want to take a minute to thank our seafarers for that, because God bless them. They did amazing work under terrible conditions, sometimes I think treated horribly by governments, including my own. But they did the job. They did it every single day. They did it well. And we all benefited from that. Came out on the other side, and we never saw the global market crash that we all expected. So we can be nimble. We’re being nimble right now with the Red Sea. We’ll continue to do that over time. But that takes extra investments. It’s a very capital intensive business, as I said. Another thing I like to tell you about supply chains is it’s not a game that somebody wins and somebody loses at. One way or another, it’s got to all be kept in balance. It’s a very competitive business. So yes, there has been a lot of consolidation after 2008 in the marketplace. But they’re fierce competitors in the marketplace. And you can’t overcharge for very long, because somebody else will come along and charge a market price to do it. So there’s a lot of benefit from the market dynamic. The downside to that is those that aren’t operating on service agreements, so they’re subject to the fluctuations in the market, do feel the heat very badly when these transitions come for events that are episodic, such as the pandemic, or the Red Sea, or Panama Canal in some cases. And so one last comment I’ll make on that is. There are some that think that operating collaboratively in our business is bad for the customers, bad for the consumers. I really argue strongly to be very, very cautious about that approach. Whether or not you like the idea that alliances work together, and they cannot work together on pricing, and they do not to my observation, they are not allowed to, but what they do is they optimize the use of the resources that are available so that they operate as efficiently as possible and can provide more services to more places than there would otherwise be. So those that want to say, don’t allow alliances, don’t allow vessel sharing agreements, don’t allow slot sharing agreements, need to be really careful because it’s hard to serve particularly developing countries if you can’t collaborate with others and maximize the use of the pooled resources that you have together. It’s not unlike the concept of small countries working together. Thank you, I’ll stop there.

Leo Naut:
And having dynamic hubs, you know, and if we’re going to have hubs, like, you know, when one hub is crunched up, jumping to another, and that collaboration between countries, which is also key for keeping the flows of trade moving forward as well.

Bud Darr:
Absolutely, and you can tie it to flow of goods, but you also can flow it to, you also can tie it to the movement of future energy that we’re going to need. Exactly. Because the points of production at scale are not necessarily going to be the points of production, of consumption, sorry. So you know, you’re going to need to move that by sea, and if you can identify two clean energy marine hubs, for example, where one produces and one consumes in large volume, you’ve got a very natural green corridor that would establish itself there, because guess what? You’re going to be able to decarbonize off a little bit of that. So there’s a lot of opportunity that’s untapped out there, and I think my fellow panelists have already brought out some of the best ideas.

Leo Naut:
Thank you very much. I also wanted, and a perfect segue for this is for us to introduce Mr. Ramon Cruz. who is the special advisor for the partnership on, sorry, it’s a very long name, so that’s why I need to read it. The partnership on sustainable low-carbon transport. Ramon, can you share with us a little bit of the work that you’ve been doing, and particularly working with companies on this initiative, and the importance of this multi-stakeholder initiative that you guys are working on?

Ramon Cruz:
Sure. Well, thanks so much, Leo. For those, it’s a very long name, the acronym is not necessarily better, it’s SLOCAT, but that is the way that it’s known in many UN circles. But thanks a lot, thanks to the government of Barbados, and UNCTAD as well for inviting SLOCAT to be here. I must say that I’m replacing our secretary-general Marucha Cardama, who had a medical problem and couldn’t come. Then the deputy secretary-general, Lisa Castillo, was stranded on the way here, so she couldn’t make it, so now you got me. But I say so because, of course, it affects the gender balance in this panel, and I’m not saying that just for the sake of gender balance, which is also needed, but just as a reflection of how our institutions and our organizations are changing, slowly but changing, and we see more women. It was great to see this morning a panel which was not a panel, it was only women, prime minister, deputy secretary-general, secretary-general of UNCTAD here, and so it’s great to see very strong inspirational leaders, you know, in this stage. So, now, that. But, well, but what I came to speak about, it’s accelerating, you know, the transformation. And I think there’s some slides. I don’t know if, do you have some slides? Yeah. Well, you know, accelerating the transformation of freight, transport, and logistics is among the most impactful steps that the global community can take to enable overall positive socioeconomic transformation by mid-century. Freight, transport, and logistics, of course, connect goods, markets, consumers, and drives socioeconomic development. And they can significantly enhance people’s quality of life, plays a key role in accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy, creating green jobs, scaling up low-carbon technologies, and enabling low-carbon value chains. However, you know, as it has been mentioned today, recent challenges are exposing the increased vulnerabilities of freight system and their workforce. And while freight transport demand is expected to more than double by 2050, without a paradigm shift, the negative climate and sustainability impacts will continue to rise. And resilience is also crucial. The negative impacts of transport disruptions on a country’s connectivity and development are even greater than the huge financial losses in transport assets, as I saw in my native Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, or the prime minister pointed out in Barbados in recent years. So to accelerate the needed transformation, SLOCAD and the CUNY Foundation, I don’t know if, did you go through the whole present slides or no? Okay, so the second slide or the third slide after that. So SLOCAD, CUNY Foundation together with Conchito, IDRI, the International Transport Workers Federation, Smart Freight Center and the UIC, the International Union of Railways have co-initiated a manifesto for intermodal, low-carbon, efficient and resilient freight and transport and logistics. And the manifesto calls on governments and businesses to prioritize systems that efficiently and resiliently combine low-carbon services from the first to the last mile. And it also calls for urgent action on transitioning to zero-emission fuels and renewable energy, optimizing logistic systems and creating local and circular value chains. It has been already have over 20 signatories representing a wide range of stakeholders. So, you know, our economies, societies must transform to remain competitive and equitable and resilient, while of course keeping, you know, to the goal of 1.5 and transforming freight and transport and logistics is key in that transformation. And so we call on governments and businesses to join as well. And pretty soon, you know, in another, we can change to the next slide and then you will be able to scan the manifesto. But yeah, so while each country will adopt its own pathway under this manifesto, there are critical enablers to intermodal, low-carbon, efficient and resilient freight transport and logistics systems. So, you know, these actions are here, you know, from setting ambitious science-based targets, regulations, policy standards to enabling economics, finance, developing integrated planning and operations, improving data, research, technology. So yeah, in the interest of time, I’ll stop there. But in the next slide, you can scan this, you know, sign the manifesto, join us. My colleague Stephanie here will have, and I have copies of the manifesto. If you’re interested in it, please join this movement. Thank you.

Leo Naut:
Thank you very much, Ramon, and we definitely encourage all here, particularly these stakeholders in this global supply chain forum to reach out to Ramon and his team for more information on the manifesto. I do want to take the opportunity to introduce Mr. Maximo Quibranza Mejia, the president of the World Maritime University. Maximo, could you emphasize the key role of research and capacity building that has enabled the transition to a resilient and sustainable supply chain?

Maximo Quibranza Mejia:
Thank you, Leo. Before that, I’d like to thank the government of Barbados and also UNCTAD for – congratulate both of these entities for a marvelous forum, and to thank them for inviting the World Maritime University to participate. The World Maritime University is one of the education and training institutions of the International Maritime Organization, so as such, our sort of action-oriented efforts are targeted towards facilitating action because we are a university and we know that resilience and sustainability are highly dependent on the achievement globally of the highest practicable standards relating to maritime safety, security, the protection of the marine environment, efficiency of shipping and all other maritime and oceans related issues. Now we all know that shipping is a critical element in the green transition and shipping as we all know is global and shipping works in an interconnected world and we are connected by our oceans or we can even argue that there is only one ocean. So because of this interconnectedness, any efforts in terms of pursuing resilience and sustainability of the global supply chain has to be global. And in other words, the effectiveness or the success of any efforts are only as good as the implementation in each and every country or economy in the world. So in order to emphasize this more at the university, I guess I should modify my early statement. It’s not only to facilitate action but specifically facilitate action that relates to levelling the playing field and ensuring the uniform implementation of the international maritime legal and regulatory framework that is being administered by the International Maritime Organization. Now the World Maritime University contributes to this through a comprehensive program of capacity development activities. The flagship program at the World Maritime University is the Master of Science in Maritime Affairs program, where our students go through an intensive 14-month curriculum that focuses on different areas in maritime affairs, maritime and ocean affairs, from maritime law and policy to maritime safety, maritime education and training, shipping and port management, ocean sustainability and maritime energy management. For those who are more inclined to undertake even deeper research, we have a Ph.D. program that we offer for those who are unable to take time out of their careers to be in Malmo, where we are based, to take up the Master of Science program. We also offer postgraduate diploma programs that you can follow online. These are in executive maritime management, maritime energy, as well as marine insurance. We also actually have a Ph.D. and LL.M. in international maritime law. Aside from the education part, we are engaged in a robust program of research, and just to give you an example of some of the research work that we have done, we look at the future of work, looking at how new technologies, socio-political patterns and climate change are shifting the nature of work, the effects of COVID on seafarers and shipping, the education that is required for greener fuels and energy and ports, cyber preparedness for maritime logistics supply chains, capacity building for the implementation of international instruments to combat IUU fishing, and a few more. We also run some shorter outreach programs, anywhere from a number of days to a week, that we deliver on site according to the requirements of the organization. We also run summer schools that normally run for a week. And the whole range of subjects from decarbonization to introduction to maritime administration. But the World Maritime University doesn’t only conduct blue sky research or sort of ivory tower teaching. We deliver education and research for implementation. So as far as the approach, what we need in terms of ensuring that this approach is successful, well, what we most need is really support from all stakeholders. To be totally candid, the university is self-funded. Meaning to say its annual budget is totally reliant on donor funding on an annual basis. So every support, every bit of support counts. But the university is, if I may say so, a success. Our network of graduates make a real and important difference in the maritime world. Over 6,000 graduates now occupy senior positions in policy-making and decision-making in different countries in maritime administrations, shipping companies, and other maritime and oceans-related agencies. And they are an integral part of the global effort in pursuing supply chains, resilience, and sustainability. And you’ll see a much higher level of participation at IMO meetings because of the education that they receive at WMU. World Maritime University alumni are involved in every stage of the maritime policy cycle, from agenda setting to formulation of policy implementation and also evaluation. So just to give a 15-second sort of, yes, summary, the transition to a resilient and sustainable supply chain requires global capacity for the implementation of agreed standards. And developing that capacity is what we do, and we appreciate all the effort that you can do to help us. Thank you.

Leo Naut:
Thank you very much. And I think Charles said it here, we could stay the whole day speaking. about the approaches and the solutions that are being put forth, also exploring the opportunities. What is at key is that collaboration, multi-stakeholder collaboration like the ones that we’re having in this forum are key, making sure that the private sector really puts forward innovative solutions that enable us, all countries, to be able to move forward into a more sustainable and resilient development. Considering that time is up, I want to thank all of our panelists for their perspectives, and I think we’re going to transition immediately to the next panel. Thank you all very much, and have a great day.

Belle Holder:
Thank you to our panelists. Thank you so much to our moderator, Mr. Leo Naut, and I also acknowledge all of our panelists, Joanna Christensen, Anthony Alff, Maximo Quibranza Mejia, Bud Dar, Abdullah Al-Munifi, and Lisa Costello. And now, ladies and gentlemen, as we get ready for the final session of the evening, which focuses on finance solutions, I’ll remind you that the first day, day one of the Global Supply Chain Forum, will culminate with an official reception being hosted by Prime Minister Motley at her official residence, which is next door to us. At the end of this session, once you return to the entrance of the Lord Erskine Stanaford Center, you will be directed and or escorted next door to the official residence of the Prime Minister. I take this opportunity to call our next panelist to the stage. Head of Transport Sector, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific region, please come to the stage, Andrés Pizarro I’ll also call to the stage Okechukwu Ihejirika, the Acting Chief Operating Officer, Caribbean Office at the African Export-Import Bank, a FRESIM bank. Also calling to the stage, Stacey Richards-Kennedy, Regional Manager for the Caribbean Development Bank of Latin America. Also like to call Lisa Harding, the Head Acting Private Sector Division, Caribbean Development Bank. And this panel also includes Alicia Taylor, IDB Invest, Inter-American Development Bank. And I will hand over to our moderator, Mr. Jan Hoffman, Head Trade Logistics Branch, Division on Technology and Logistics with UNCTAD. Jan Hoffman, the floor is yours.

Jan Hoffmann:
Thank you so much, really so happy to be here, last but not least, a panel on what really makes the difference at the end of the day, money. We started out with global challenges, we went to regional challenges, we looked at private sector, the ministerial, with again private sector. And in this last session we have put together different financing banks. development banks, institutions, who want to support these different reforms or the issues we discussed about. And I’m really happy we have here the Caribbean, we have Latin America, we have Latin America and the Caribbean, the IDB covers both, then we have Africa, and we have Asia. So what I had hoped with this panel, and the question I had shared with the only first question with the five panelists, to see what are the specific solutions that you are providing that you think make a difference in your region? And without pre-empting what they will say, because we have not played the game, I don’t know what you will say, but knowing that in Asia there’s a lot of shipping industry, maybe in Asia you want to also fund actual ships, while maybe in the Caribbean the situation is different, while in Africa maybe you want to support the African free trade area. I don’t know. I’m just guessing. And I’m now curious to see what answers you will give. I would suggest by sequence, I would start with the region here, if you don’t mind, so I would start with LISA, if that’s okay, and then after LISA would go to CAF, after CAF IDB, then we go to Africa, then we go to Asia. So that’s my proposed sequence. But all of you have the same questions, look at your region, see all the challenges that we discussed, all the things we have learned, and now you provide the answers, the solutions. You pay for them. Thank you.

Lisa Harding:
Good afternoon, everyone, and again, thanks for inviting me. The Caribbean Development Bank is certainly very pleased to be here and to be a partner in this, as I think has been said many times over, very timely conference. in Barbados. So, you know, at the rate of, I think, a lot of what was, I had planned to say, has been said today. That is a bit of a danger of coming at the end of the day. But just to say that, you know, in terms of, you know, 2020 for us within the Caribbean also, you know, really pointed to the fact that our supply chains are not, were not reliable and sustainable. I think that was the key message. And further, we recognize that to optimize our supply chains, it was really not just also about cost, but really about resilience. So I think that is, again, a common, you know, characteristic for us in the region as well. In terms of the vulnerabilities, I think we spent a lot of time as well today focusing on, you know, climate change, our geographical issues, and so on. I think just to contextualize it as well, I mean, what we’ve also recognized in terms of vulnerabilities is the stagnation of foreign direct investment, which also helps to finance our supply chains in the region. And that is an important characteristic, which I’m going to speak about when we speak about financing supply chains, because without that, without that heavy reliance on FDI and that stagnation, that has created a crisis in the region. So in terms of what the private sector can do, we recognize that the private sector really is a partner in development. That is the new ethos of the CDB, not only as a beneficiary, and therefore we are really looking to the private sector and recognize the private sector as key in facilitating and investing in the supply chains. So, I mean, we look at it from a point of view in terms of investments. We all know that the, in recent times, the private sector has been playing an increasing role. in terms of investment, in terms of infrastructure. CDB as well, but we’ve also seen, particularly in areas like solar, wind, et cetera, we’ve been seeing that surge in investment activity. But we also recognize that there’s a role for the private sector in areas such as technology, blockchain platforms, which help to increase traceability and transparency within supply chains as well. Supply chains analytics, et cetera. So I think that is where a key role for the private sector can come in there as well, as well as risk management. We recognize that this is an important area in terms of risk assessments and really helping the private sector to be able to predict and to really mitigate against risk coming. In terms of financing, of course, this is the key area. And at CDB, we have been working a lot with private financial players in terms of financing. How do you get affordable financing to the sector? There are a number of innovative mechanisms and financing instruments, such as credit guarantees that we have also been trying to support, supply trade financing, and supporting FIs with product development for new lines. There’s also, in terms of working with private capital, in terms of impact investors and so on, to get the immobilized capital within the region. And of course, the much-needed insurance. And I think we heard a lot about that earlier today. We need to have more insurance mechanisms, especially in areas such as agriculture, which is, again, very susceptible to a lot of risk as well. So there’s also the, I think, a focus on PPPs, of course, where we’re speaking about blended financing. And that is a key role that CDB has been playing in terms of trying to promote. And we have seen some fairly good successes across the region. I think this morning there was a discussion around the ports in Jamaica, for example, as well as Bahamas. We have also been doing a lot of work with Compete Caribbean in terms of value chains and clusters, and that also speaks to certification. And that is one of the other areas that I think is really, really important when we speak about quality infrastructure. And I think many of you may not be aware that Jamaica, for example, their conch fishery was the first in the world to be certified with the Marine Steward Council. And again, those are some of the areas that are important because that helps to facilitate market access. So just kind of to, I mean, bring it all together, I think our role has really been obviously direct financial support, actually funding of infrastructure, providing technical assistance in terms of not only to build and strengthen SMEs, because again, we heard this mentioned a lot today, supply chains are very complex and are becoming more multilayered, and SMEs are at the root of it. And we therefore need to build and strengthen SMEs because they are key players in the supply chain. It’s just not about a port, it’s about the SME and getting them competitive to be able to use the systems. Also in terms, as you mentioned, the enabling environment. You have to have the enabling environment for it all to happen, the ease of doing business, the business climate reforms, the legal and regulatory work, that is what is really the engine behind what we are doing here. And of course, finally, partnerships. We can’t do it alone. While we recognize that the supply chain as well as the network, we as MDBs also need to work together. Recognize our unique strengths and partner with others. I mean, we have all of our partners here that we work continuously with, but to recognize where we have our unique advantages and pool our resources and knowledge base to really be able to make the impact that we’re looking for. I’ll pause there. Thank you.

Jan Hoffmann:
Thank you very much. A quite wide portfolio. And still I have the feeling, one could realize, it was for the Caribbean. Some of these things may be less relevant for landlocked countries or for other situations. Let us move to CAF. So I give the floor to Stacey. And see what would you do the same and what would you do, or are you doing different in Latin America?

Stacy Richards-Kennedy:
Mic check. Wonderful. Good afternoon, everyone. And let me start off by extending my sincere thanks to the organizers, to UNCTAD, the government of Barbados, and all of the various sponsors and partners for the invitation to be here and to participate in this panel. I’d like to start where I perhaps just take off from where Lisa ended by saying that, yes, all of the banks are quite similar, but also quite different. And I know there are a number of acronyms, so I’ll just also explain that CAF is the Spanish acronym for Corporación Andina de Fomento, which is the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean. And over the last year and a half, we have been intensifying our efforts to expand the range of development finance options to the Caribbean. We set up a regional office based in Port of Spain that is serving all of CARICOM, but also engaging in conversations with many of the other islands that are keen to have additional sources of development financing. CAF is a homegrown development bank, which means that it was established by Latin America and the Caribbean for Latin America and the Caribbean, and we operate with a slightly different business model or operational modality, which is we are set up as a cooperative bank and we attend to the development priorities of the countries that are shareholders of CAF. Having said that, however, we do have a really innovative instrument that was approved by our board last year, which has allowed CAF to provide technical assistance and different types of support to countries that are not yet members of CAF, and through this we really see it as a mechanism to get closer to the countries to really understand the development priorities and to help them understand how CAF works, what is our value added, what are the core areas of expertise that we bring to the table based on our 54 years of experience doing operations in Latin America, and then to share that, to really serve as a bridge between Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, and Asia. And I’m really proud to be on this panel alongside my colleague managers for the different institutions, because just as Lisa said, partnerships is really what – this is what is going to help us to achieve the level of financing that we need in the region to unlock the opportunities. No one institution can do it alone. The needs are much greater, and therefore I’m really keen to see how we continue to pull our efforts, join forces, combine resources so that we can attend to the needs of the region, and to act with the – pace that we need to act and at the scale that we need to invest in the region. Now moving a little bit more towards the issues for this panel, I wanted to share that the approach that CAF has been using to strengthen global value chains focuses on three key areas. One has to do with the different types of interventions and mechanisms through which we make an impact on value chains. But also secondly, the specific interventions, I’d like to share some examples of those types of interventions we’ve undertaken in the region, and then also a couple of key reflections on how we strengthen the enabling environment, which was also mentioned, as well as support knowledge generation and knowledge transfer to improve value chain productivity and expand impact. Now just very briefly regarding intervention modalities, given that we’re a development bank, we do utilize some of the key instruments that are available to sovereign as well as non-sovereign clients, financial products such as loans and investments, but also credit lines, guarantees, partial guarantees, and other forms of structured and blended financing. But then we also are very eager to put some technical assistance to work on grant financing to ensure that we can complement investment with different forms of grant financing, innovative instruments, as well as different formats for de-risking some of the initiatives and projects that are brought to the table. And then alongside that, of course, or I should say at the core of that really, is the work that we do on knowledge, knowledge products that gather the data and support the critical analysis that is needed to better inform and tailor. interventions in our shareholder countries. And of course this includes things like our open courses, online courses, publications, studies, etc. So just to touch on a couple examples to give a bit of context and flavor to the work that we’ve done. We have had, for example, sovereign guaranteed credit operations for the expansion of the Panama Canal, which has impacted global logistics and benefited multiple regional connections. Another example relates to, for instance, non-sovereign guaranteed investment through CAFAM, which is CAF’s asset management company. And this has gone towards many projects in Latin America. For instance, the Central Railroad of Uruguay, which has influenced the cellulose chain development in that country. Now, CAFAM is a really interesting modality, which is a subsidiary of CAF and operates as an investment vehicle specializing in non-sovereign guaranteed private investment across Latin America and the Caribbean. And it partners specifically with private sector companies and through a specific funding modality that allows CAF to mobilize capital and expertise to support projects, foster innovation, and increase the competitiveness of the region. So this is one of the modalities that we would like to explore more in the Caribbean and certainly put at the service of how we can boost the resources that are available for these types of supply chain projects in the region. And I’ll pause there. Thank you.

Jan Hoffmann:
Thank you very much. We go to the IDB, a co-partner of this forum, and I want to thank the IDB, also colleagues who were working on this. Alicia, your specific programs to help supply chains.

Alicia Taylor:
Okay, thank you. So just to, I know people’s attentions are beginning to wane, so to try to zero in on the point, IDB Invest is the private sector arm of the IDB Group. We have been very actively involved in providing innovative financial solutions to address challenges in supply chains across our region. Our region’s focus is Latin America and the Caribbean, and we have a very high priority on the Caribbean. We have a cadre of financial products that we offer to clients. It starts from import financing, pre-export financing, export financing. We do accounts receivable financing, accounts payable financing. We provide a standby letter of credits, credit guarantees. We also provide forfeiting, and there are a host of other products that we offer. What our focus is on, especially now, is our motto of Originate to Share. It was so great to hear in other panels that we recognize or are recognizing more and more in the region that we require collaboration, and we see that as central as well. What we want to do as a multilateral development bank is to make a greater impact in the region where we are operating. And in order to do that, we actually have to take smaller size positions in transactions and open it out to other financial institutions to work with us on the projects. So whereas we maybe in the past have looked at doing $100 million ticket on our own, we’re looking at scaling back, perhaps doing 30, maybe 50 million, and bringing in the other financial institutions. Our role is not to disenfranchise the financial sector. There’s a very active financial market here. The banks are very active in the market, both locally and regionally, and we are working with them. Currently, on all of my transactions, I have other financial institutions working with us on the particular transaction. And this spans across transport-related transactions, renewable energy that also feeds into transport projects as well. So there are a lot of cross-cutting themes. We’re very focused on digital transformation, climate change, mitigation, and adaptation. We focus very much as well as gender, so very glad to see a more balanced panel here. Because it’s not just tokenism when it comes to gender and diversity. These are very strong and real issues that have to be addressed. And I think that for far too long, it has been sort of on the back burner. But we’re definitely introducing it to the foreground. We’re looking at the challenges that have come up because of the Ukraine-Russia war, what’s happening there. And I think part of what we’re doing as well is trying to educate businesses to understand that there are these trade finance solutions available. There are some banks that are not using it because it is probably more revenue-based and advantageous. for them to let businesses just use an overdraft facility. However, that is not the best solution if you are in the trade business. If you are importing, if you are exporting, you have to look at trade-specific financial solutions to help your business. I think one of the key things that certain businesses are not fully aware of is, for example, if it is that you are now starting into exports and you want to begin the business, there is financing available that will provide you money on the orders. So based on the orders, you can get financing. The bank, of course, has to assess the risk involved, but based on that, you can get financing. There’s also financing when you actually have gotten the orders and maybe they’re repeat clients, and you are looking now to grow your business. An exporting business helps your internal business grow because you’re beginning to get foreign exchange revenue streams and that comes back into the business for you to develop the business more, expand more. So whereas you may give in exports terms, you may give 60, 90, 180 days, instead of waiting the 60, 90, 180 days, you come to the bank and you say, can you discount my receivables? And so the way that IDB Invest is working on that is that we work very closely with the financial institutions. So being a very large multilateral development bank and one of the most active development banks in the region, we are lending to financial institutions. So your local bank, we will provide them with a trade line. One of our products is called Trade Finance Facilitation Program, where we give a line of credit. to the financial institution in order to lend to various businesses in their markets, in their region. So, I think that this is how we are catalyzing and trying to stimulate the trade business because we cannot only stay local as well. In order to grow, you have to export. And I would dare say not just export in the Caribbean because that’s also a finite market. You have to look at exporting outside of the Caribbean and to grow.

Jan Hoffmann:
You gave applause to the others as well. Excellent. So, we now move to the east, but actually not because African Export-Import Bank, you have an office in Barbados. What are your solutions?

Okechukwu Ihejirika:
Yes, thank you. Thank you very much for the opportunity. So, first of all, let me start also by extending our gratitude to the organizers for giving us opportunity to speak on this very important topic. Yeah, you’re right, African institution in the Caribbean. So, probably I also start by making that introduction of Afrixin Bank. We are the trade finance bank for Africa, that’s what the name says, and by extension now, the Caribbean. So, with 52 member countries in Africa, we are poised to support development of trade finance in the continent. So, first of all, focusing on enhancement of intra-African trade, and of course, Africa South trade. So, now that has been extended to the Caribbean with the setting up of the Caribbean office last year. The idea, of course, is that some of the solutions that we’ve actually tested and found to be working very well in Africa can also be… extended into the Caribbean. Given the huge similarities between what happens between the two regions, we actually physically face the same issues. So it means that whatever has worked in Africa effectively can work here. And it also points me to one successful use case, which was the acquisition of the vaccine, which the prime minister talked about earlier on. We facilitated that through that pooled resource system, where other countries in Africa, other countries within the Caribbean, were able to pool their resources. And AfriZone Bank put down a $2 billion guarantee to Johnson & Johnson, which facilitated the prompt delivery of vaccine to the countries within the region, in both regions. So that means fostering relationship between the two regions is something that can work effectively. Solutions that has been effective in one can also significantly work in the other. Now, coming specific to the subject of the day, which is about supply chain finance, I believe, first and foremost, it’s important to try and break down what constitutes the supply chain. But that might be a huge conversation for another day. Because why it is so is that every component of the supply chain requires a different level of financing support. So that means you, having that supply chain mindset, should also be able to come in and say, what can I do to this specific sector? Because, of course, why it is a chain is that if any of the facets is broken, it’s definitely going to have a ripple effect. And what happened during the COVID and lessons learned, which is to build on resilience, to ensure that certain things that has happened, which had negative impacts, definitely has something built around it to make sure it doesn’t happen next. It means that partnership can be fostered. I’m happy with what Dr. Stacey said. Partnership is actually what is required. to be able to surmount the huge gap that exists in terms of the financing need. In Africa alone, I think the estimate is about 100 billion dollars of trade finance gap alone. So that means qualifying transactions, people who genuinely need support, who approach the banks and who are unable to get the required support. So what that means is that conventional banking may not be the solution. It means banks need to now come up with solutions, tailor-made solutions that can also fit into situations. And this is what we at Afrazin Bank definitely are doing, to make sure that we surmount those challenges as they come up, to make sure that also we come in and get to the area, to the root cause of the problem, and make sure that our solution gets to not just the periphery, but down to the people that actually need it. And a case in hand would be the SMEs. Of course, they would be the key beneficiaries of certain financing solutions that would be available under any significant supply chain financing arrangement. And this is because we’ve all said, I mean it’s been re-echoed several times here, that these SMEs, the private sector, are the key engine room of any economy. So once you get them working very well, definitely countries will begin to function well. Definitely one reference that Mrs. Trisha Atanis made, where she talked about dominance within the maritime sector, where only five companies or so control over a certain percentage of the marine sector, would be something that poses a huge risk. But with support to SMEs, it’s something that now means that more people can have more power, have more say within the supply chain, and that concentration risk will significantly be mitigated. So for us, one of the solutions we put out is what we call a freezing bank trade link. And what that is, is a supply chain finance solution whereby we – first of all, recognising the significant challenge that SMEs will face with assessing financing from conventional financing institutions, leverage will be on their ability to borrow. Most of them are new institutions, they don’t have adequate history in terms of financing or the financial clout that is required to qualify for lending through conventional means. The next would be even KYC issues. We know recently a lot of global banks pulled out of certain markets. Africa and the Caribbean were actually hardly hit by these two phenomena. So that means specific solution that now recognises the effect on SMEs is something that might be necessary. And how will the trade link address that? So that would be significantly focusing on the SME and then focusing on the bigger institution who they are supporting. So that would mean we would take the risk of the bigger institution who is giving them the PO to work on, who is giving them one contract or the other to do. And they’ve done it. Instead of having them wait for 90 days to get paid through the trade link, once this is approved for payment by the bigger institution, they will be able to lend money and then advance part of the funds to the SME. That way, instead of having to do one supply and do the next in 90 days when they get paid, they can actually go back into the market and do more, then turn it over over time and that becomes value. And that way they can also build capacity over time and begin to become and be on the pathway to get into becoming a big institution. The next solution, of course, also is around facilitation. We believe there’s a lot of advocacy arrangement that is required also to make sure that the financing support that is there. desired for this specific sector actually gets to them. So in Africa, we recognized the fact that factoring, for instance, was critical to facilitate intra-regional trade financing, but we found out that there are not enough enabling regulations within the continent to support factoring, for instance. So we took that up, and we were able to do all the lobbying that’s required, do all the engagement at the ministerial and parliamentary level, and got model laws set up within certain jurisdictions in the continent. And now that is working. Now we’re having quite a lot of factoring companies coming up. So we are also trying to do the same here in the Caribbean, where we recognize there’s a huge potential. So if you go to Guyana, for instance, you will see the big oil company on top having invoices that need to be supported by certain SMEs from their supply chain. So if there’s no clear-cut way to support them and create a structure that can make sure that this thing happens, then the issue will continue to linger. So we will try to see how we can also encourage factoring within the region. Maybe it’s important I use this opportunity to announce that the AfriZone Bank annual meeting is going to happen in Bahamas, 12th to 15th of June, and it’s going to also double as the third edition of the African Caribbean Trade and Investment Forum, which aims to bring together key players from within the region to come in, find a way to interact, and find a way to also see how we can begin to boost the numbers of the trade relationship between the two regions, which, by the way, as of now, is next to nothing. So on the sidelines of that engagement, we will be having a factoring roundtable, which we will hope also to see. see how we get views locally, and see how we can take that back. I would have loved to talk more, but I, of course, can’t stand the fact that looking at the screen is turning red, it’s saying time up, I’ll have to stop here, but we think it is important that financing institutions, especially development financing institutions, get to partner more, get to also be nimble in terms of their solution approach, to ensure that whatever solution they are bringing gets to the destination that is required. Thank you.

Jan Hoffmann:
Thank you, Oka. And yes, time is up, but we do want to give the floor to our last panelist, Andres, who came all the way from Singapore, relatively young. You came from Beijing, okay, so you personally came from Beijing, but the bank’s headquarter is in Beijing. Okay, so I wouldn’t want to get this one wrong, it’s the AIIB, but it is a relatively young development bank, so that one I got right, and you focus, of course, on Asia and infrastructure. Andres.

Andrés Pizarro:
Exactly. Thank you very much. First of all, thank you to UNCTAD and the government of Barbados for organizing this timely and important forum, and to yourself for inviting AIIB to participate. So I’ll give you a quick overview, because I imagine the majority of you have never heard of AIIB, and then quickly what we do. So AIIB is based in Beijing. It’s eight years old. It’s the newest multilateral development bank in the world. Our mandate is the economic prosperity and integration of Asia, and we do this through infrastructure financing. We’re specialized in infrastructure and obviously the associated services, and in infrastructure we’re financing transport, water, urban, digital, energy, essentially we have a small incipient activity in what we call social infrastructure, which means schools and hospitals. Our governance is very similar to any other MDB. What is unique is that we have 109 member countries, so we go beyond the Asia member countries. This is the largest membership of any MDB, aside from the World Bank. But what is interesting and will surprise, I think, the Honorable Minister of Foreign Affairs of Barbados, is that the majority voting rights in our bank come from the global south. 75% of the voting rights are Asian countries. We finance private sector sovereign and intermediaries, FIs. We have similar products as was described by ADB, and obviously sovereign financing. We do this within the same team, within the same institution, so we might, in a particular project, be financing the viability gap, financing the concession and the concessionaire themselves. From the outset of the creation of the bank, we relied on co-financing, but it’s become a way of doing things. We believe in cooperation and not competition between the banks, and we are co-financing in Asia with the Asian Development Bank, with the European Investment Bank, in Africa with the African Development Bank, in Latin America with CAF. We think this is the way forward. We will continue this way, and we will continue to finance in this manner. The way we select projects is global. We don’t have country strategies, we’re not limited by country-related ceilings, and we have four pillars, or four… priorities. One is green infrastructure, the other one is cross-border connectivity and connectivity in general, technology enabling infrastructure, and private capital mobilisation. So I say the four pillars globally cover maritime sub-sector and supply chains in general. So within the infrastructure that we’re financing, in transport, roads, railways, ports, airports, and the associated services, and aside from these thematic priorities, what guides us now is the bank’s commitment to the Paris Agreement alignment. All of our investments have to be Paris-aligned since July 2023. This means we have a screening criteria that determines which project infrastructure or mobile asset is automatically aligned and which needs additional assessment. So additional assessment in infrastructure, roads and airports, ports are automatically aligned, railways, metros, and mass transit automatically aligned, and when we’re looking at mobile assets, again, railways, metros, mass transit, e-vehicles automatically aligned, and we need additional assessments for vessels and aircraft. What’s interesting in what we’ve been doing, if I take it now to the maritime sub-sector, we’re financing ports. For instance, Tianjin Port, which is the port that serves Beijing, we’ve done a project on the digitization of Tianjin Port. We finance ports in the Middle East, and in airports we finance three airports. We have two airports in the pipeline, and what’s interesting is we finance vessels. We finance three 7,000 TEU container vessels. for a Singaporean firm, and we’ve been asked very recently to assess the financing of aircraft for a firm in India. These two last subjects require for us additional work on the methodology of how to screen these projects so that they are really Paris-aligned and we comply with our commitments. Thank you very much.

Jan Hoffmann:
Thank you. Let me also give the applause here. Yes, it’s said time’s up for quite some time, and we have a cocktail reception upcoming, which is for every participant. And also we have very important closing remarks. Our good old friend Avinash Persaud, originally from Barbados, now with our partner IDB, working on common interests, like from Paris to issues. So actually, no, I had agreed with Belle that Belle would announce Avinash. It wasn’t me. Sorry. So Belle, you have to announce Avinaj, and we conclude this panel. One applause to all the panelists, please. Thank you all.

Belle Holder:
Thank you so much to the panelists. Thank you to our moderator, Jan Hoffman. Thank you very much. And now, ladies and gentlemen, our closing remarks will be delivered by Mr. Avinash Persaud, Special Advisor on Climate Change to the President of the IDB. Please give Mr. Avinash Persaud a warm welcome to the stage.

Avinash Persaud:
Thank you, Belle. Good evening, everyone. It’s a pleasure to be here, a great pleasure to be back at home. Let me thank UNCTAD. Let me thank the government of Barbados. It makes me remember, I think it was about two years ago when I wrote a very short paragraph to the Prime Minister on WhatsApp, we’re a WhatsApp government, on why it would be great for Barbados to be President of UNCTAD, and partly for raising some of the critical issues around supply chains, small island development states, and climate change, which you can play a role as Chairman of the Conference. It’s been an exciting, interesting day, lots of very interesting stories, a great commitment. I’m hearing on collaboration across different sectors, from business and governments, private sector, and all of our key sectors. I’m hearing a lot of shared perspectives across today. I think we understand where we are, we understand the huge opportunities, and yet I feel a little bit like we’re in a parallel universe, because there’s some big problems out there that we’re not solving. There’s some big issues and challenges on supply chains and challenges that impact development that we’re not solving and we’re not getting very close to solving, as all the more important because of the great opportunity. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in front of us. We are facing the next biggest industrial revolution, the green transformation, within a handful of years. We have to make a massive transformation of the entire global economy. We can do that. Well, in a way that enfranchises people, reduces poverty and inequality, that has a massive redistribution of wealth, of income, of opportunity in our world, or we could do it badly, reinforcing all of those iniquities. And I would say we’re heading to the latter, because we’re not really making major progress. And let me focus on three things, and three potential solutions of how we can respond to them. And I’ll be as quick as possible, because I know you’ve had a long day, you must be very tired, and I’m competing with drinks at Elara Court. CBAM, Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. You all know it by heart, right? I hope so, because they are proliferating, they are the future. All of our big markets, developed country markets, are imposing carbon border adjustment mechanisms. This means that when you export a product to Europe, they’re going to put a tax on that product to reflect the fact that you may not have had an equivalent carbon tax in your country, or your supply chain locally has not faced the same environmental standards. What is that doing to supply chains and development? But you know what? It may be anti-development, but it’s here to stay. They’re proliferating. We have to find a strategy for dealing with them. In fact, CBAMs are not as bad as they could be. The alternative, often touted, is a singular global carbon tax. That actually makes little economic sense, because all of our country… countries, all of the different development stages people are at, mean that that price will have a different impact on all of us. It’ll probably be a burden on poor countries where the costs of transition are high. So CBAM is better, because at least with a CBAM you can do whatever you want to do in your country. It’s just when you export, you’ve got to export to those similar taxation and levies and environmental standards of the country you’re exporting to. What’s our solution? Do we have a strategy? Do we have a national regional strategy? Is there a Latin American and Caribbean strategy for dealing with CBAM? And CBAMs are proliferating into other sectors too. Try exporting forestry products to Europe today and you’re going to face the European environmental standards on forestry. And that’s Europe’s right to do that. They will argue that if they have high standards and all that happens is their industry goes out abroad to places with low standards, they’ve not solved anything. So they’re going to do it, they’re justified to do it for themselves, it has an impact on us. And we need to work out our response. Critical materials. Indonesia has slapped on a ban on exporting nickel. Other countries are going to do the same. Why? Because the idea of free and long global supply chains, of free trade, it doesn’t seem to have worked for developing countries. It doesn’t seem to work for commodity exporters. Commodity exporters always seemed to be disadvantaged in this free trade global long supply chains. It’s interesting why that should be. If you think about producing something with a global supply chain, you’ve got critical materials, you’ve got capital, you’ve got labor. Each of those things are essential. You can’t make a lithium battery without lithium. So why is it that the value added is not in our commodity exporting countries? Because each one of those things are critical. And yet the value added is somewhere else. I think Indonesia is on to something, but is not going to be WTO-compliant, right, Matthew? So we’re going to need to have some other approach for which developing countries can support the value added. Maybe it’s an export tax, a reverse tax, that falls the more value added is done in your country. Encouraging, therefore, if you do that, you have to encourage FDI into the country to develop product, develop value added, and export from your country, and you’ll have less of a tax than if they exported the raw material. We need a strategy to make sure that in global supply chains, the value added is not always done abroad. And finally, in a world of CBAMs, in a world of critical materials, value added products, hopefully more at home, we need investment. And you know what? We’ve talked about it. Opportunities are great. Opportunities in developing countries, Africa, Latin America, we have tremendous opportunities to be the generators of solar and wind, of biodiversity. The investment is not flowing. The investment is not flowing. Net transfers, the developing world needs $2.4 trillion a year just for climate finance. And net transfers of money, it’s not even positive, it’s negative. More money is going out of developing world to pay interest, and we pay debt, than is coming in. So, we’re not even near the beginning of that transfer of finance. One of the biggest problems is that capital is in developed countries, and capital does not wish to come abroad faced with a number of risks. And when we say that, we think of many of the development banks work hard on what we call micro-risks, rule of law, technology certainty, contractual certainty. But the biggest risk in many developing countries is foreign exchange risk. Because we are in an international financial system that draws a very sharp dividing line between countries that export international reserve currencies, developed countries, the US, Europe, the UK to some extent, and countries who import their international reserve currencies. When you are in a developing country and you import someone else’s safe currency for your safety, when the world catches fright and money flies, your currency weakens sharply. You try to defend it by raising interest rates, cutting fiscal policy. You tighten policy, making the crisis of the currency falling even worse. In rich countries, faced with capital flight back into their countries, they are able to act in a counter-cyclical way. They can cut interest rates. They can expand fiscal policy. They can do quantitative easing. So we have this world of this tremendous imbalance in the national financial system, and that is why investors want a huge premium before they go to invest long-term investments in developing countries. We need new hubs of FX liquidity, new mechanisms that will give investors reassurance that long-term investments are not going to suffer from this volatility and cyclicality. There’s some ideas out there, I won’t spend time today talking about it, but these are three critical things that are challenging supply chains, challenging development, that we do not have solutions for or a strategy for. How do we deal with the proliferation of CBAM? How do we deal with value added in the supply chains? And how do we deal with foreign exchange risk and getting investors to our countries? And I think we have to crack these things if we want to have an international system that is big enough and reflective enough for the massive green transformation, the once in a lifetime opportunity for a green transformation that transforms our world to a better place. Thank you very much indeed.

Belle Holder:
Thank you Mr. Avinash Persaud, and I want to say thank you so much to all of our speakers today and of course to you. Now as is customary in Barbados, we can’t have you come join us on our shores and not share with you some of the fun and engaging aspects of our culture as well. So the rest of the evening will be spent at the official residence of the Prime Minister, which conveniently happens to be located right next door. So ladies and gentlemen, you can stretch your legs, and once you exit and go back to the main entrance of the LESC, which is the Lord Erskine Standifird Centre here, you will be directed or escorted next door. Literally the properties are joined by a gate. So you will be escorted next door to the official residence of the Prime Minister, known as Hilaro Court. Thank you so much ladies and gentlemen. That was day one of the Global Supply Chain Forum. We look forward to you enjoying tonight’s proceedings, and of course joining us for day two tomorrow, 9 a.m. here at the Lord Erskine Standifird Centre of the Global Supply Chain Forum. Thank you so much. See you next door. Thank you.