e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e good morning everyone thank you very much for coming it's very exciting to be uh launching this new publication which has been a project that we've been working on internally in the WTO for a while now um let me just say that this event is being live streamed um so there is uh so hello to the online viewers as well and not just to uh everyone who's here in the room um and online viewers know that they can um send questions to dialogues w.org I have my iPad here and we'll be I'll be looking out for your questions um because uh this event is being live streamed it's important to only have one microphone open at a time um so that uh things can work well on the WTO YouTube channel um this is a very serious issue and our panel will be talking about this issue and we are thrilled that um director General has put this issue on our agenda we' have organized a number of events on illicit trade in food and food fraud before a trade Dialogue on food in 2022 our annual Symposium of the agriculture division at the end of last year 2023 was dedicated to the subject as well it's an issue that's of huge importance to Consumers to producers to governments to regulators and so um it is certainly one that merits uh time discussion we have a a fantastic panel for you today um we will start with opening remarks by W director General Dr GOI um after which we will transition into panel mode um we have with us uh miss Helen Medina uh the CEO of the world Spirits Alliance she's here for now she will be joining us on the podium later uh we have uh Jeff Hardy director general of the transnational Alliance to combat elicit trade trace it thank you Jeff um and we have of course um the um permanent representative of China to the WTO um Ambassador Lee and the permanent representative maius to the WTO um uh Ambassador dwara kabadi um and we have WTO deputy director General Jean Marie poam who's always supported us in this work so um I'm very excited to start this panel director and GOI over to you well thanks du for doing this thanks to you and the division um for um launching this work uh today and I'm particularly pleased to see the high caliber of panelists we've been able to uh to get some of our most senior ambassadors and those also joining us from the outside uh so thanks very much it's really my pleasure to be here today to to launch this WTO publication if I if I'm not my usual bubbly self I have a cold so excuse my low voice but I I am really happy um this this publication on illicit trade in food and food fraud and um I'd like to start by giving you the context um of of this particular uh uh study um we we all know that International Trade takes place both legally and unfortunately legally too every day governments and Regulatory Agencies around the world are forced to spend time tracing and combating illicit activity so when I arrived at the WTO in 2021 I was a bit surprised to learn that while illegal trade had periodically come up in committee discussions the organization had not addressed the topic in a substantive manner the WTO rule book is designed to discipline internation trade and to prevent the law of the Jungle from prevailing in international trade relations but illegal trade and fraudulent activity undermine our efforts to level the playing field for economic actors and um I just want to say that from my perspective some of the activities that are um linked to Illegal trade can be deadly we had a case in my own country of illegal trade in drugs um that really resulted in a lot of Lo loss of lives and we had a fierce um Fierce lady who was the chair of the Food and Drug Administration and she fought this almost lost her life doing it because it's a huge trade that makes a lot of money and that's why I feel quite passionate um about the subject it's not just about the loss of resources and money but also about the loss of lives so we we we started looking into this issue and we estimated that trade Miss invoicing that is discrepancies between reported imports and exports imply the value of illicit trade was worth $535 billion in 2019 that's a lot that amount was equivalent to nearly 3% of global Goods trade resulting in tariff revenue losses worth 87 billion in 2019 motivated by the covid-19 pandemic our first issue uh uh study looked at illicit trade in medical products um as I just told you I really had uh personal interest in that but also because of what was happening during the P pandemic and we found it was a complex Global problem posing serious economic and public health threats our estimates show that illegal trade in medical products constitutes anything between 1 and 4% of trade in the sector worth as much as 20 8 billion in 2019 a figure that understates the negative repercussions for public health from things like ineffective or even toxic medication that study was launched at a high level session at the aid for trade review and I must might say that uh you you um unodc partnered with us in that particular study and they are very keen in partnering with us on on this work that study was launched at a high level session at the a for trade review in 2022 together with the several International organizations unodc like I said un the world Customs organization the oecd unido wh and wpo this contributed to an important Global conversation and I encourage members to address the issue in relevant WTO bodies and use trade tools more effectively in the fight against illicit medical products I was I myself was surprised at the quite substantial amount of Interest it generated amongst other International organizations only a few weeks ago elicit trade featured prominently in discussions at the UN Chief Executives board meeting convened in Chile by the Secretary General Antonio gutterz and I was very proud and pleased that when the conversation came around we were able to talk about what we at the WTO are doing about this trade because the UN Secretary General uh they're all becoming more concerned and he was even surprised and pleased to learn that we had already partnered with unodc to produce a one study um I think we all agreed that we would try to cooperate uh more closely to tackle some of these issues so that's the backdrop on us for our subject today food fraud and illicit trade in food here when I talk about this now I refer to substandard Foods falsely labeled foods and Foods whose ingredients have been tampered with as well as counterfeit and smuggled products our Agriculture and commodities division took up the challenge of looking at this issue and I do want to thank you do and the whole team as I said for preparing the study given that the terrain is both multifaceted and new to us our colleagues conducted this study in collaboration with other expert institutions and we are are grateful for the guest contributions from the food and agricultural organization the United Nations interregional crime and Justice Research Institute from the private sector through the international seed Federation and from nonprofit organizations such as s saave and the transnational Alliance to combat illicit trade the W2 agriculture division has organized trade dialogues on this subject including last year's annual agricultural Symposium on illicit trade in food and food fraud the experts from across different Agri food sectors who presented to that Symposium include many contributors to this publication as you would have seen the new study covers a wider range of issues related to food fraud starting with a surprising fact that there is no Global definition of the term I should say here that a definition may be imminent since the Codex elementar commission is developing a new guidance document on food fraud that is expected this year or next the prospect of an agreed definition matters because as we all know it's hard to tackle a problem that has not been properly identified our new study goes into the seriousness and scale of the problem and examines the various regulatory approaches being used at the national Regional and international levels to tackle food fraud and icit trade in food and of course it looks at how WTO rules may be relevant the problem is sizable although the global cost is difficult to determine given the clandestine nature of the activity annual estimates of the economic loss to the food industry are in the range of 30 to 50 billion US which does not include losses associated with elicit trade in alcoholic beverages I think if we added that it might be another take it to another dimension we also discover that the problem impacts all continents and food sectors ranging from olive oil to Honey from wines and spirits to spices it spares nobody food fraud is also a moving Target new methods to defraud consumers and the public are uncovered every day serious health consequences are of course the most worrying with periodic reports of poisonings and death but we should not under estimate the economic damage to Farmers big and small and to Agri business the Agri business and Agri food sector so if two of the key messages from this publication are that the problem is sizable and that it impacts most sectors and continents the third message is that the WTO can help tackle the problem the WTO rule book has many rules that can assist governments in confronting this challenge of particular relevance at the WTO agreement on on S sanitary and phytosanitary measures the SPs which enables members to regulate food imports B based on science and risk assessment techniques and the agreement on technical barriers to trade which enables members to address deceptive practices these are two of the very important agreements in this organization that we're very proud of and I don't think people quite realize the extent to which these agreements help with their daily lives they are really not aware um but many WTO other WTO Agreements are also relevant for instance fully implementing the wto's trade facilitation agreement would res reduce excessively combersome B procedures and red tape that present opportunity for criminals to exploit in addition the agreement on trade related aspects of intellectual property rights the trips agreement is a vital tool for members in Ling counterfeit food and beverages we need to be leveraging the whole WTO toolbx to fight illicit trade and food fraud it's my hope that this publication will help spur discussions and action we are starting to look at various other areas including illicit trade in Plastics and illicit trade in the digital environment and um my our colleagues as I said at the UN are also very pleased and interested in in cooperating on this one thing that the publication makes Crystal Clear is that just like the old ad age puts it an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure our efforts are better placed in preventing fraudulent activity than in limiting its consequences after it has occurred it is through that prevention lens that I would really like us to examine the contributions the WTO can make to tackling illicit Trad in food so thank you very much I wish you very good deliberations and a a good panel I'm going to remove myself shortly and not infect you you know until I've taken the proper medicines but thank you all for coming I'm going to stay a little while and then I'll just slip out quiet wonderful well thank you uh very much Dr n GOI for uh um an excellent introduction and thank you above all for having put this topic on our radar screens in the WTO um it has been an incredibly exciting project to work on so um I would now like to move um to uh Jeff um trace it Jeff Could you um walk us through the size of this problem its magnitude its impact on the sustainable development goals and what you think some of the solutions are and perhaps the role that you see for WTO yeah thanks do I'd be happy to do that and also thank you Dr and for inviting me and tracet here uh tracet is a is a business NGO and we uh work across 12 different sectors that are vulnerable to illicit trade So today we're focused obviously on elicit trade and food but tomorrow that might be elicit trade in Pharmaceuticals and the day after we might be trying to stop counterfeiting worldwide so um again I'm honored to be here I think it's um I'm really pleased to see WTO take this kind of leadership uh I think there are two dynamics that are going on right now um in this building you know the first is you're widely regarded as the custodian for international trade to make sure that the multilateral trading system delivers benefits in terms of you know Economic Development and prosperity and ensuring that there's a Level Playing Field especially for the developing countries and you know that trade is an instrument for inclusive sustainable growth right now that's that's your mission but the other Dynamic that's going on is illicit trade and the growth in illicit trade that's really robbing you of all the benefits that you're trying to achieve by promoting uh the multilateral trading system so um I'm pleased you know that you're focused on this I think primary objective here is to try to find some balance between trade facilitation and the negative social economic impacts associated with illicit trade now I know that the Gad agreement for example has certain Provisions that lay that out but I think meetings like this the work that DOA is doing uh is the first step in understanding that there are significant negative uh social and economic impact so again I appreciate um you holding this meeting um to get to your question on the size I mean Dr andazi mentioned some of the numbers that we've estimated for trade in agriculture and food at around 50 billion dollars but if you if you add in illicit trade in fish for example that's another 50 billion if you add in uh losses from illicit trade in uh Spirits which we're going to address here shortly that's another 200 billion or more so quickly you see that this starts closing in on a half a trillion dollars um if you look at that in other sectors counter fting the oecd for example has been reporting that the level of counterfeiting worldwide is 450 to 500 billion Pharmaceuticals you mentioned Dr andaz you mentioned the estimate you had two years ago 28 billion on Pharmaceuticals well a lot of the industry standards show that that could be 10 times the amount so it's a it's a it's a problem with a wide range of negative impacts but we're looking at at food in particular and I think I'm you know I'm reluctant to say it but it's true is that I think that the problem of litr and food is going to grow and get bigger before it gets smaller and I think the reason for that is because there are some main drivers um that are going to present greater opportunities for that and one is the universal need for food um the other is the population growth it's going to require more and more food delivery increase in food prices now why am I mentioning that and a lot of you know in the post Co area era food prices have gone up when food prices go up that makes Alternatives cheaper alternatives um more attractive a lot of times those cheaper alternatives are the illicit products that we're talking about today and then there's the point of the elongated supply chain the longer the supply chain the greater the number of of nodes and delivery points the greater opportunity and vulnerabilities there are for criminals to exploit so I um I I think again this meeting is at a good time because I think the problem is going to get worse unless we step in uh and take charge so to continue on with the question I mean let me try to Define it a little bit you know the uh executive director mentioned that we don't really have a definition uh there's a number of ways to describe it we try to just talk about that it's how it's the deliberate substitution tampering adulteration whatever is done it's for economic gain outside of the legal system so that's one way that we're defining it and I think it's important to think of elicit trade in food and terms of two categories one are Commodities so that's sugar tea coffee and you can imagine if you're trying to regulate um the other category are packaged Goods now this is you know coffee that's been processed for example and it's packaged and labeled in sometimes trademarked so those are the two categories for elicit trade um I think what I'd like to do next though is just maybe run through three or four different ways the different forms of elicit trade and maybe give you some examples and the number one way really that we're concerned about is adulteration and that's where a criminal um body would mix an extraneous substance material or ingredient into an existing product so a lot of interesting stories here but if you take shredded parmesan cheese that's often they'll take wood cellulose and and mix that in why do they do that because they can get more for the dollar great creat greater profits but there's also examples of corn syrup that's that's um used to dilute you know pure honey uh adding water to milk right just to to um increase the profits adding cheap spices to premium spices then there's the scary examples that you know bring on consumer health risk for example associated with toxic or ingredients that are added to baby formulas that turn out to be toxic and there are are quite a few cases evidence of this happening it's it's almost hard to believe another category is substitution that's where a low value product is substituted for a high value product here is a great time to think about fish you know a high value fish like a halet or a seab bass is substituted with a low value fish a white fish that is it's indistinguishable um other examples of substitution include horse meat for uh in the place of beef why because horse meat's cheaper greater profits for the criminals to do the substitution U mislabeling is another category that's often used by criminal groups in food fraud that's where a product is falsely labeled for example as gluten-free I don't know if any of you have gluten intolerance but this is a big deal if you do and the product is mislabeled or meat that's labeled as koser and it's not so you know these are ways that they can elicit the high profits out of that same product without going to the measures that it takes to produce a koser food product for example um falsifying origin is another one is probably easy to get your hands around but you know the labeling mislabeling of or ordinary table salt and calling it you know Himalayan pink salt which costs five times the amount you know generates Pro U profits for criminal groups who are are able to infiltrate the supply chain um in terms of counterfeiting the executive director mentioned counterfeiting this is something that we're all familiar with most of the tactics that I just mentioned are embodied in counterfeiting but the difference is is that now the product is put in a package with a brand a recognized trademark and a logo where the consumers will willing to pay a higher price for that type of product and the consumer feels like they're safe and they can trust that brand and that there won't be adulteration or substitution or topic a a toxic ingredient added and then the last one I want to mention is smuggling it's a little bit of a different animal smuggling is because it's driven by Price differentials between countries sometimes neighboring countries origin and destination countries it can come about by ex size taxes that are imposed by one government but not on the neighboring government which gives incentives for criminals to take advantage of that price difference differentiation it can be also um stimulated by government food subsidies where a certain country receives food cheaper than the market price uh and the criminals exploit that and reexport those Pro those food products to other countries to profit from um Seafood is a good example of smuggling illicit alcohol that I know Helen is going to go into in great depth is a major major International problem of smuggling alcohol across the borders um finally doah if you'll allow me to continue I wanted to just briefly mention the relationship between illicit trade and food and the sustainable development goals um you know when we're talking about all of this it's important to address well what are what are the damages I've said in the outset my remarks if the w is going to take a leadership position I think you really need to get your hands around what are those economic and social losses and to do so I think the UN sustainable development goals are the best sort of road map to use because they address the world's you know most acute economic social and environmental challenges so a couple of years ago tracet did a report uh looking at um all 17 of the sdgs and we mapped that against 12 different elicit trade sectors and we found that all 17 of the sdgs are negatively impacted uh in terms of today's com conversation in food fraud we have found that 11 of the 17 goals are negatively impacted and I think I just I'm not going to go through all of them but just to highlight a few uh and let's start off with sdg1 which is no poverty two zero hunger and uh three good health all three of those are negative negatively impacted one two and three out of the gate because as you know you know access to healthy and affordable food is fundamental to addressing these issues like Global poverty and hunger but if you have illicit trade that's destabilizing food security that's uh disrupting the supply chain that's reducing availability that's pushing upward price upward putting upward pressure on prices undermining Fair markets and reducing incomes of farmers you know collectively all three of those are undermining our ability to achieve the goals and I think the main takeaway that I want you know to be heard is that we collectively the WTO or the UN itself is not going to be able to achieve the sdgs by 2030 or if you happen to extend the deadline you're not going to be able to achieve these goals unless real efforts are taken to mitigate elicit trade there's a couple other goals that I'd like to mention 8 and 16 uh on economic development and criminal activity but I think I can just leave it at that for now and I thank you for your time thank you very much je if you could switch off your microphone thank you um Helen I'd like to invite you to come to my seat and to speak from here um we would love to hear from you uh about your industry how it is impacted by this problem and I will bring your name plate good morning everyone hi good morning I'm glad that we were so flexible to move me around like this well thank you doah for inviting me to this panel and having uh Dr nooi the director General next to me speaking about this is is a real honor it's also an honor to have his Excellency uh from um China and Her Excellency from Marius and the deputy director General and of course you Jeff as well um it is I'm with the world Spirits Alliance and it's an International Trade Organization um with 27 Spirit producers and associations from around the globe so we are uh working very closely with J's team as well and with the alliance against the countering uh counterfeit spirits to to work on this issue because we know it's a it's a real problem um so we work with enforcers we do a lot of training intelligence and tip sharing uh to really tackle this problem but we know that there's a lot more to do so they're really excited here uh to be with the WTO so um to put this problem into context we wanted to share with you or I want to share with you that the who recognizes that this is a real problem and it estimates that one bottle out of four is illicitly traded so that that is quite large if you think about it um and in Broad terms what is elicit trade to our organization so there's about five categories um Jeff did speak about it briefly but just so that you hear it from my perspective we have uh smuggling smuggling is a big issue for us um that covers both ethanol so that can be put into uh the spirits production as well as finished products so these are items that are coming into a country but without paying the import tariffs at all and or the fees right then you have counterfeit and Jeff talked about this quite uh broadly and these are the fraudulent kind of imitations um or branded beverages uh as well as industrially manufactured beverages that are either unbranded or sold under unregistered Brands so that's the counterfeit then there's artisanal now these are the beverages um that are considered illicit if they are made for commercial purposes and um often they violate the local laws right so this is a a an issue for us as well then you have tax leakage these are alcohol beverages that are legal manufactured in a country but are not paying the tax um and then there's surrogate now this is an interesting one I didn't know anything about but have learned about it this is the alcohol that's not is meant for not consump human consumption but diverted into the market for alcohol beverages and this is quite dangerous for human health okay so this is a real problem for us as well so the thing with elicit trade and Jeff has done uh a good job kind of describing it for you but for us it's also important because it Fosters corruption right it denies the governments here the potential of uh Revenue uh that is needed to really improve these socioeconomic conditions as uh Jeff said it's really important for the SGS that we do um you know get the revenue that you need to make sure that you can work on the SGS and if uh elicit um alcohol trade really diminishes that possibility finally it poses serious risk to Consumers this is a real problem for us that's why we're looking at Food fraud that's why we're looking at illicit trade in food because it's helpful it's um it's really harmful for consumers um so just just to give you an example of of how this works for us um particularly when it comes to alcohol often It's associated with uh a tax hike right because that's when people and and and and um the sort of illicit Traders see a um an opportunity so what happens is if you have a huge tax hike in a country often this reduces the uh revenues and there's a steep rise in illicit trade um and in one country this happened where it was 125 hike of on Spirits uh uh um taxes and so what we saw was that there was a steep side and of elicit trade then we also saw actually a overall consumption of of the alcohol was increased at the same period we also saw that there was huge organized crime around this uh that was dominating the market so this was a real problem um and uh what in the end was that there was huge losses in tax revenue so what we see in the work that we do um is that there's a lot of cor there's a correlation between um fiscal Regulatory regimes and illicit trade which is why the WTO is a good place to to to combat this okay so what we see is that the trade facilitation agreement committee could really do a lot more in this space um I'm glad to see that people are nodding on this this is a place where the private sector can actually um bring testimonies they can share with you their knowledge um and then you know can learn from from them and their experiences uh we could also encourage members to start voluntarily um share National information on how they are implementing the TFA um um to reduce uh you know problems at the border and to reduce elicit trade and on this point Thank You China for doing a lot of good work in this and Marius um on on the TFA and and China's been done a great job when it comes to uh the digital stuff so the digital Customs um part of of the TFA so we find that that's a really important bit and chapter 2 actually uh was written uh I mean there was a lot of work done in this space in Chapter 2 as well as place to work on illicit trade the other bit was the WTO TBT committee this is a wonderful wonderful committee um it's a it's a place where you can come together discuss issues you know you get to see the proposals before they come out um and it's a time for to be frank with each other and we've used that we the spirits ass um Alliance has used this as a place to raise concerns about alcohol strips um stamps they are often they're designed to prevent distribution of untaxed um or potentially unsafe alcohol but what we found is that these stamps can easily be counterfeited so it's not really that civil bullet and we've been able to have that discussion at the TBT so we find that it'd be really nice to have that kind of conversation ongoing um we also think that the um the uh trade policy review this is another wonderful mechanism that you have you guys have so many great tools really um and this would be a really nice one to also have a nice discussion um there and to review what countries are doing when it comes to elicit trade so you know what we've understood about illicit Traders is they're smart right these guys will go where there is ma where profit can be made so often it's where there are import um tariffs that are high and there's High domestic taxations that are not really adapted to the local context so you really want to take a look at that uh area because that is where the ilicit trade will happen they will come to your borders so it's really important to punish and prevent illicit trade through robust controls and enforcement it's important to educate really consumers need to understand this and this is where we can really help as wsa and my membership can really help with this uh the education but as business we're contributing to these ongoing discussions it's a really wonderful important discussion that we're having here today the oecd has taken this forward as well and we're really happy about that but I'm happy to hear that other UN members are interested in this and other un family is interested in this as well and we're really um you know able to step up and and work with you on this so thank you um thank you very much Helen uh I think that was a a very important testimony of how serious this issue is to your sector to hear that it's one in every four bottles is is alarming um so thank you for being here for making the time and for telling us how we can help in the WTO um Ambassador canaba I'd like to turn to you for your country's experience how how has maius um dealt with this issue how how is it experiencing this issue and what can you tell us about the role that the WTO can play in this space thank you well thank you and thank you for organizing this ENT you for coming as well I wanted to recognize my colleagues in the room Maria and and marip pier and also other colleagues and friends who are here because you know every day you ask yourself in the full day that you have what things of value did you learn today and certainly I think this is one of them and as you know I was to my Minister was to be here this morning now he wasn't scheduled to speak but I told him you know Minister this is there's this thing going on he's the minister of Health you know so obviously food standards come under his perview and I unfortunately his time for speaking at w who just came up just ahead of this meeting so I had to abandon him and come so I'm not going to read out his notes I'll share with you a couple of things that I want one of the things WTO could do and I come back to what Helen was saying was doing events like this one sensitizing people but using the trade policy reviews because I wanted to come to that in being discussing in a number of trade policy reviews I was quite shocked to see that some countries don't actually have good Laboratories they don't have foot standard agencies they don't have the basics to check what's coming into their market so people end up buying whatever is cheapest because in addressing zero hunger we buy what's cheapest because that's the only thing we can afford so who is going to help these people set this up so when the trade policy review is over and I don't want to to D my colleagues from TP because I like them very much is just can we make a list of what we thought were fundamental deficiencies and to see how we can address this remembering that WTO has convening power and you can bring together people to work on this for you and tell the donors under aid for trade hey you know we just noticed that XY Z countries and I can give you a list of we they don't have sufficient standards they don't have sufficient um institutional capacity to do this can we help them better now the EU for example does a lots of work on this in the ACP countries but the reason it does this with the ACP countries is because it used to import from the ACP countries and it wanted to make sure that whatever reaches the market of the EU is safe for it consumers if you go to countries and you tell them you know uh food fraud they say oh Commercial Business you know this one will put pressure we are the One finances my campaign we don't say these things aloud right so I don't want really to be dealing with this when you tell them you know what your people can die it's food fraud it's serious this is why the one thing I was going to suggest to you is that next time you do this the next World Health assembly you do this with World Health Organization and you bring in unodc and I was going to suggest iaea International atomic energy agency which might sound surprising but they're helping us with our food safety as well they do a lot of work so you might want to bring them in and bring in the health ministers a high level event to listen because the health ministers will be the first ones concerned about this and we'll take the picture back I was stealing little copies of this to go and share you know of the report because I thought it was exciting to have this report they are the ones you need to reach out to they are the decision makers we are the talkers but they are the ones who will take the decision so you need to talk to to them for them to go forward on this this is one now coming back to the question of my country you know when you when when there is no country in the world that hasn't been through a case of food fraud or smuggling or anything it is the question is when you're a net Food importer like maras and I'm talking about I know I know what Maria is going to say net food importers were actually eating the stuff that they import sometimes we use some of them to reexport or to do other things they come in the value chain and we've had that problem so I'll share it with you when you import food for your own consumption and moous imports almost 70% of that you have a duty to make sure that your system in place is foolproof that it's reaching the people without too much difficulty then you have the other part you're importing components that go into what you're producing and you don't have control over that when we had one case like this where we're importing chilies red chilies from an area to create spices and then suddenly when it reached Europe we had a sort of Paul saying oh by the way we think we've detected something in there that's not quite right clearly it was Sudan for it couldn't be anything other than Sudan 4 the chilies look bright red the spices look beautiful but then we don't know so clearly at our end when it was coming in we didn't know at that time that this Chile had been contaminated with Sudan 4 but being a small country luckily our people react fast and they have we have strong institutions uh hccp in macius is Mand you have to have especially for certain Food Systems uh you have a food standards agency you have a food laboratory you make sure that your people are eating what is safe food as far as possible but there will be always the odd ones and those who undertake this practices and I'm sure Jeffrey can tell us they are very smart they're always smarter than you they will always find a way around so a bit of Sudan for a bit of other things and they'll find a way of hopefully this will reach the market without too much problem you spoke about honey and hfcs you know uh High corn sorry H hcfs High cornor syrup being put we know olive oil all of us we know the case of tomatoes as well but in the case of maras we produce sugar but our sugar is of the highest quality we call it cocacola gr sugar with a very low dust residue so sometimes you get when we're supposed to be exporting to the region we capitalize on the quality of our sugar to the region and then we find hey other sugar being passed up as our sugar not quite why there not quite right there because they don't say it obviously but it's not the same uh quality of sugar that we're talking about here in that one but this is just a small example I think what I want to say to you is small Islands in trying to do this your biggest challenge is what you're small you have to control Port of Entry you have to control your food handlers you have to control literally every aspect of the supply chain you have to control everything now I have 13 Health stations I have two points of Entry they're both controlled I also have 170 staff in maras who do the inspection of all this so when I look at the statistics 2023 for 10 month it told me there's been 18,000 inspections that sounds good enough because you you been 18,000 inspectors through 170 people not bad you've had like 400 contentions established you've had you know uh Improvement whatever it is certificates being handled to them so you have people doing the work then you have the food standards agency but where is your real problem your real problem is that I don't even have a representation in Rome I don't I cannot participate in codex elementar on a regular basis who's going to do the standards for me when I have a problem where do I go to so I have to rely on others doing this work for me and coming to me and it's the same for other things I work a lot with unodc because I'm accredited to Vienna so I know the work that they do and I'm happy to work with them to good things but the basis itself sometimes were absent two when I want to do something good I have to choose I have so much money I need to put this here I put it here if health is concerned so you help governments by showing the health aspect working with wh put your money here you need that but I might need some support and the support comes from technology what is the latest technology for me to detect fraud and I don't have that technology who will sell me a small country of 1.3 million some interesting technology commercially not interesting so for the region five small countries five small islands in the Indian Ocean try to think of me as that region and then I want someone to come and tell me can that wonderful Bank of Technology we set up for the ldcs also help us in this kind of case who can help us trace and purchase the latest technology available to avoid this kind of fraud I know I'm not answering your question fully but I wanted to bring this to the for because you have to make choices and in making choices you have to make sure that your people are best served and sometimes when you make those choices it is still not enough so you need help from other people so multi-stakeholder approach and this is where WTO can help us hopefully on that one thank you do thank you very much um uh what a what a statement and indeed incredible to hear about um you know the um the experience of Marius you spoke about being a small country and all the challenges that are faced by a small country and I'd now like to move to a very big country um and to hand over to Ambassador Lee to hear about China's experience and again what you see as a potential role for the WTO on this topic thank you D the big ones also have our own problem just like China the US yeah thank youor is a truly pleasure and the privilege to join today's event uh I also attended uh the agricultural sism uh on the same topic last November so congratulations to secretaria and all the authors uh for your dedicated work in ruling out this publication it offers a broad range of the uh studies and the perspectives from the international organizations and the private sectors uh in combating this very persistent issue including maximizing the role of the of trade and the current adop book a lot of information and suggestions are really useful and uh thought provoking uh as Guided by the moderator I will take this opportunity to share with you the China's uh practice and also some Reflections on on this issue uh you know China is a economy with a large population and vast Market food safety has always been a priority for our government the persistent efforts uh have been made to ensure the food security for our people in recent years in view of the diversity and the complexity of the illegal food activities China has adopted targeted efforts in the for in the following areas first identifying the major challenges and taking concrete measures China's Maj recently China's major food safety concerns include the trademark infringement adulteration and counterveiling in order to containing and defer and deterring these illegal activities the competent authorities have taken uh rigorous measures in particular tting on cutting of illegal supply chain from the uh sources continues conducting large scale destruction of cont conflict and substandard goods and they regular regularly publish in typical cases uh and so on in rural areas where eled food issues are relatively more serious the emphasis is on promptly addressing violations such as the addition of nonedible substances to food and unqualified meat products Swift legal actions are taken against any such violations ensuring that full safety standards are upheld at the same time determine the potential offense second establishing a modernized governance system for importing food safety primary measures include streamlining the uh registration process for overseas production Enterprises con conducting regular audit and inspections of this reged Enterprises optimizing supervision and sampling mechanisms for import imported food strengthening rapid response capability at PS This efforts have largely ensured that the imported food uh products made strengthen safety standards thereby protecting consumer health and uh boostering consumer confidence third incorporating the information technology to enhance administrative capability in food law enforcement I know the report also touch the this important too the it has greatly increased the uh synergies among different Administration and agency work enhancing the efficiency in addressing food fraud and elicit trade in trade in food in addition the social media platform s are emerging as effective Tools in China in recent years the use of the popular social media platforms like the Tik Tok way chat and way transparency and public awareness have significantly boosted which plays a crucial complimentary role in enhancing the food safety in China when it comes to the role of the Depo uh actually as already mentioned by the uh by DG and B I I agree all all the said I think the dep should play and actually have already played a role helping members tackle El agree trade through promoting the legal trade inut I'm sure you have noted many uh insightful suggestions that being referred in the in this report uh taking this uh opportunity I would share three points firstly W rules never prevent members from taking measures on full safety in adoptive rule book such as get article 20 SPS agreements TBT agreement traes uh and also uh uh other agreement I think members can uh take the appropriate measures to address the the concerns as a largest uh food importer in the world the government of China has the responsibility to also take the measures to ensure the food food safety secondly food safety measures should not be used as a protectionism when measures to are to be de developed of course the w rle rules sh shall be well uh followed uh actually if the legal trade can be more easier at a more low cost uh more have a more uh easy access to the other other markets I think the illegal trade can be also depressed these are the two sides uh lastly the dep platform can be utilized to strengthen the cooperation and experience sharing W body are playing a key role for members to express TR concerns on others in the meantime they also provide M uh multilateral platforms for members to cooperate and learn from each other especially in the changing World such as digitalization for example with the uh introduction of the e-commerce in the crossb trade the fight against uh food violation is facing new challenges food operator exploit Rory loopholes such as the different legal definitions regulations and the enforce enforcement procedures for illegal food and con confident food at home and abroad to avoid supervision this has already resulted in the new food safety risks besides when illegal Pro producers and operators set up their Network server abroad investigation will become almost impossible without cooperation among competent authorities so in this in this context no single member whoever is small or bigger can solve all the problems by their own so fortunately W is in the for members to share their own practices including the laws regulations and explore possible ways to enhance cooperation uh such as discussion on the best practices the TBT ministerial declaration delivered during the mt13 also provides ways forward against new changes and new challenges uh so my message here that P has and has already played its role in tackling the elicit trade in food and the food fraud and more work could be done thank you for your attention Ambassador thank you very much um I think that was uh an incredibly thought-provoking menu of options for the WTO to explore uh as you mentioned the WTO is already doing a lot of things in in this area but could do more um deputy director General Jean Marie poam you've heard the panel and of course you've been involved with us in this issue since um the end of last year your participation in the um annual Symposium on this topic in December um what are your reactions to what you have heard well good morning everyone and thank you do and thank you to the excellent panelist uh for your energy and enthusiasm in tackling this this matter actually most of the messages about the WTO have been already said so I just have to say the rest and I'll try to to to recap it um around three points the first one may sound trivial but I don't think it is uh it's obviously uh W2 is a place where trade rules are being negotiated so every time you promote the WTO you promote legal trade and this is a temple of legal trade which by definition opposes illicit or illegal trait so strengthening the organization is helpful in itself the second point was touched upon by uh all of you uh on this uh table is that the WTO provides several entries which are directly relevant to the fight against um illicit trade uh in food and alcohol beverages I'm not going to recap them all but uh two or three of them have not been mentioned and they are directly relevant to um allowing our members to exercise control over their borders and to enforce their trade law uh one of them for instance is um custom valuation agreement which aims for fair and uniform and neutral approach to the valuation of goods for custom purposes and applied correctly and consistently it can be very instrumental in in the fight against the probe second one is a pre I'm talking all the unknown agreement here the pre shipment Inspection Agreement is also um directly related to this through the verification of the quality the quantity and the price and the currency exchange rates also for the goods which are being Crossing the the the border and use effectively it can help also of particular uh importance are there have been mentioned the SPs sanitary and phytosanitary measures and TBT agreements that you were just referring to this is just a flavor of all the uh entries that we can have which are directly relevant to this fight the third Point uh I think is uh is more or less implicit in what has been said especially by by by Jeff and uh and and Helen has to do with the link between and also you Ambassador the link between criminal activities and incentives uh on the market I mean to visualize that we can use a very famous historical example which is the example of the prohibition of sales production and distribution of alcohol in the United States uh at the last century and uh directly related to the prohibition we had a growth in the control of criminal gangs over this trade till the end till the repelling of this legislation so every time governments think about restrictions or trade restriction they have to think about the Arbitrage between the incentive or the disincentive on illegal activities not to say that the WTO is having any say about when do you restrict or not restrict and Ambassador I think it was right that you would remind us that the WTO never prevents any country from regulating whatever uh the country wants to to regulate but still this incentive uh to lower trade restriction to promote liberalization is also a incentive to criminal activities and the fact is that our uh trade uh negotiations on agriculture are very much related to that for different reasons for for Level Playing Field reasons and others but also can help by lowering the barriers to to uh legal trade of food and uh other um related product can help uh disin disincentivize sorry uh the um the criminal activities which are related to that so this is in a nutshell what I heard from from this table I would add one final comment about the fact that the WTO offers to its members technical assistance and um uh capacity strengthening for the implementation of this rule uh we have several programs which uh cover from border controls intellectual property rights uh and application of product standards uh one is really dedicated to SPS capacity building it's called stdf so this should be used to to promote This legal framework against illegal and elicit Trading Group thank you thank you very much uh Jean Marie in fact the the menu of options is building many of you have um have mentioned things that the WTO can usefully do from um involving the Ministers of health and you know capitalizing on the fact that the World Health Organization is here in genev to tpr tra policy reviews and raising the issue in that context to continuing to use the TBT committee to opening trade as you said since that is sort of the uh the counterweight to uh illicit trade as you mentioned Ambassador so it's a big menu of options and indeed I hopefully we will you know take that work forward after this event and go deeper into the issue I'd like to now give the floor to one of the authors who uh who's with us today one of the contributing authors Gabrielle Maru um she is um she is a a very well-known uh uh lawyer in the WTO and has contributed a chapter to this publication which I would encourage you all to read uh it's a tour uh if you will where she goes through the entire WTO rule book to highlight the main agreements that could be relevant to this issue uh Gabrielle there's one issue that we haven't addressed um on this stage so far and it's dispute settlement um in very few words what can you tell us about the relationship between dispute settlement and the issue at hand thank you thank you very much DOA I had understood I would intervene if the issues were not raised but UND dispute and I'd like if you allow me to say something about a standard that was raised already by Ambassador USA Ambassador but UND dispute just because I'm proud of our system we have in the WTO uh that is very relevant for dealing with illicit uh trade a system of experts where panels would hire experts with the involvement of the parties and it's very different from Individual experts attached to one government and it's not an expert just of the panel these experts are sort of judges parallel to those sort of legal judges and their role is to clarify the facts and explain uh these sort of Distinction that are necessary for elicit I mention it because a few years ago in another dispute at the international court of justice in the he uh judge Sima the German judge pointed to the WTO system of the use of expert as really something that should be considered by the icj and other International tribunal as a success story mixing common law and civil law approach to help eventually the judge take a decision but the other point you had told me that I could U mention about um International standards and that's again very special of the WTO the TBT the SPs the Gat to some extent state that when a government adopts domestically a standard that is basically implementing an existing International standard developed outside the WTO that's important because in WTO we don't negotiate standards International standard government don't negotiate them here but there is this principle that says if governments follow those negotiated outside they are presumed to be acting consistently with the w even if it could restrict trade but the issue and this is what Ambassador Usha raised is that therefore you have to be aware of what is negotiated in all these expert Forum there's no other alternative if you want to go with expert you need to go to them but the WTO is an immense sort of example of coherence where the trade system will say yes if you do respect those it restricts trade we will still recognize them and it is true also for transparency so all I wanted to share is I mean you've said it all there are many many rules that are and have been used we've had already some disputes on illicit food for be for instance changing the origin but the WTO is very well positioned in dispute in its principle for dealing with this and as you said the problem is only growing so thank you daa Gabrielle as usual incredibly eloquent thank you very much and of course your comments on International standards are very powerful because in this particular area codex is now preparing a standard on food fraud um which uh my understanding is an April this year got circulated to the Codex membership for comments um and I think they're very far down the line in terms of uh you know finalizing this so we may very soon have that standard with a definition of um a fraud a food fraud um with an identification of the types of fraud um with an identification of the products that are hardest hit by the fraud and with recommendations for measures for prevention and control so very um interesting what you have just said on the very Central role of international standards within the WTO system um so thank you very much to you all but before I release the panel let me just see if there are questions from the room we have a couple of questions online that are coming in but is there anybody in the room who has a question yes Ambassador please I don't really have a question I just wanted to to commend you for putting this together I haven't read the report yet but I will I will and just wanted to point out I mean it's been an excellent presentation by everybody and you know I I was just sitting here thinking that we spend so much time arguing with each other about so many things not going to go into details but I do think that this is an area where I would hope that you know all the entire membership you know we can continue working together uh because of course it is a matter can be a matter of life and death and also of of impacting criminal activity um and I do think that again there's there's a lot of issues that have been mentioned including by by Gabrielle um where we can continue to explore how you know we we can continue to to make a dent um on this issue which sadly as has been mentioned uh will continue to grow so thank you for putting this together thank you very much and to our um outside speakers this is the ambassador of the United States in case you haven't had a chance to meet her did you want the floor Jeff yes please well thanks I just wanted to uh respond also to what Gabrielle said um you know in reading through this document and the one that was done about a year ago on Pharma tical you know there is a whole alphabet soup of great agreements the TBT has um and the TFA um have a lot of Provisions in them for strengthening Customs for increasing transparency for doing you know risk profiling mitigation a lot of these there are a lot of tools in the toolbox that can be used but I think for at least from my perspective you know the WTO is very good at telling what not to do to block trade but I think if you were if we were to build on your work perhaps is to take all of these different illicit trade related provisions and then perhaps make a compendium of them in a more of a proactive way and start helping or telling members what to do uh and how they can use those tools to you know strengthen the mitigation of elicit trade so thank you very much um would anybody else uh want to take the floor anyone who's in the room if not then HH yes please sir over you yeah good morning everybody and I'm Julia manato I'm the agriculture counil for the European Union certainly in terms of European Union trade on on on uh specific agriculture products we have a we have a unfortunately um a lot a lot to say and a lot to a lot also in terms of cost of such Le in trade so we first of all we would like to thank uh the work done by the World Trade organizations but also other to expose all of that because I think the first the first exercise indeed is uh is to make it transparent to to inform on the impact on relit trade is not just small things because particularly important become important for health first of all then for trade for uh for the leit trade because we have to protect the lecit producers and the lecit Traders on on this business that earn their money from that and of course consumers so exposing such such informations giving the cases showing also how the public authorities are working the the ambassador of China has indicated that in the paper there are several example also of Investigations by the European Union authorities or member states on that we have to be all all involved that so first of all expose also the impact on on and here I finish on on the sustainable development goals because this is part of the major exercise that we are doing as as the ambassador of the United States reminded that this is also part of agricultureal discussions thank you thank you very much um yes Christian please yes thank you DOA um just to introduce myself briefly Christiana wolf I'm the secretary of the SPs committee the committee on sanitary and phyto sanitary measures that was mentioned a few times I I found it particularly interesting how I think pretty much all of the speakers alluded to the fact that how Crosscut this problem is and cross cutting in the sense that for example let's say a food product has been there's Al adulteration of the food product let's say I mean to pick up on one example the horse meat instead of beef in in in prepared food products sold in a supermarket of course this is deception of the consumer it's it's adulteration it's not okay for on that level but in addition it leads to food safety risks because the horse meat nobody has probably checked where it's coming from what are the levels of Veterinary drugs that are present in the meet and so on and so um in terms of dealing with this problem I was wondering if any of you would be ready to comment on in my view it seems to require cooperation among the different enforcement and Regulatory Agencies both at the national level but also at the international level and maybe if you could say something about that thank you I I know I mean it sounds like more of a recommendation than a question and I you know and I I I agree it's in my notes I was I been hoping for the chance to share this four or five things that I think the WTO could do going forward and one of them is definitely to take some leadership uh with the other I intergovernmental organizations some of them are right next door like unad who's done a lot of work in fact the unad ministerial just um named elicit trade for the first time as a priority work area obviously unodc has been doing a lot of work in this space wco is outside of the UN family but nonetheless they bring a lot of tools to this the oecd is more of a regional body but as someone mentioned they've just bumped up illicit trade into a full b a full fullblown working group under their trade in agriculture division um so I think there's a lot that can be done the executive director herself mentioned that after the pharmaceutical report was done she'd convened a round table with some of those same igos to look at Pharmaceuticals I think and you yourself had mentioned the cross- sectoral part so I think what we the problem we get into is if do we make it to se do we make it specific sector oriented do we make it specific iGo oriented what what I'm trying to suggest is what if we bring it all together I think there's an enormous amount of space for a new instrument uh International instrument to be uh focused on illicit trade and if you take you know the work let's look at the amount of work that WTO did on the the trade facilitation agreement years of negotiation and work that was put into that because you thought that the benefits could yield what about a trillion dollars contribution to GDP well what I've said in my own remarks is there's one to three trillion dollars that are draining out of the global economy because of illegal trade and I can't think of a better reason for WTO to step up and put the equal amount of effort into um fighting against illegal trade as you've done with the TFA thank you very much um other questions or comments from the floor yes Ambassador please sorry to take the floor again but but this Exchange just reminded me of something that I should have mentioned and I think somebody mentioned it in the panel um I agree not just um you know working and and thinking about the the health ministries and and the other International organizations but the private sector um is very important because they are the ones that are facing the challenges from the from the illegal sector um and you know sometime you know I've had every now and then some some brief conversations with big um companies that do a lot of work on you know tracing and making sure that Supply chains are clean and and so I I do think that let's not forget that you know part of that is bringing them into the conversation as a baby step I'm not sure about work doing a new international instrument that's that's way down the road um but but I do think that at least having that conversation with you know health organiza health ministries health organizations trade and the private sector because that's kind of the intersection of how all this stuff comes together sorry to have taken the floor again thank you very much um we have uh only seven minutes left and I I don't want the online viewers to be frustrated so I will just take two questions from the many questions that have rolled in uh I'll start um uh with uh Ambassador kabaji a question asking about the African Continental Free Trade Agreement and whether it can play a role in combating illicit trade and and fraud I guess I'm from Africa that's why they ask the question huh yes absolutely absolutely but then again you'll be confronted with the two sets of challenges not every country in Africa has the same Readiness to deal with this to how do you deal how do you help these countries achieve institutional capacity in a short term in more or less an equivalent Manner and three it Beyond you know when you do e-commerce you realize that many countries have legislation but they have no electricity and it's the same situation here you have a situation where you can have legislation because it's easy to go to a number of Institutions and say help me I need legislation so we do the legislation and then we pray that something's going to happen and it doesn't always happen so afcfta can actually do this by working more closely with WTO as well I think and to see how we can do this better but I think where afcfta could also help us is precisely on codex ISO or the stand being set and helping companies understand better how we can get this uh how we can get them more sensitized to all these problems and something not related to AFC FTA I asked myself the question why is it mous is so Keen to have this food standards agency Food Lab there's all this pressure to be doing things all the time I think part of it is the high level of literacy like 96% and then you have all those people out there when you bring food to them they're hungry or they taste something it tastes good they don't care they have never heard of WTO or wco or anything at all so how do we deal with them we live we we can't live in an Institutional world of having Tred and Helen har much I love them but we had to deal with the real world as well out there where there not only our population to es but millions of people who just never heard of this so I that will be the challenge of fcfa thank you thank you very much and one last question uh online and this is a question to you uh Helen oh um so it's a viewer who's saying that with respect to alcohol the interpole asks people to think about the four Ps the place where they buy their alcohol the price if the price is suspiciously low the packaging if it looks strange and the product if it has a bad smell Etc um and the viewer is asking how can the world Spirits Alliance leverage technology to address the problem of fraud in the sector tracking tracing digit verification they're saying yeah thank you so much well um it is it is a real problem but a lot of the stuff actually uh that's yes you should be looking at that but a lot of the stuff that's happening um illegally is also online so you can't actually feel the product smell the product see the product um right so this is while those are great tools if you have it in front of you a lot of the issue is now on e-commerce um so so that is where we're working a with with um agencies and and I'm glad that the Ambassador from the US talked about this a little bit about private sector working with the um with with others and that's where we've been doing a lot of work actually is really training um with Customs officials and also with other with the platforms themselves um to to look at this issue because it is quite gra grave and in fact it was even worse because of uh covid covid times right so this is people are really looking online nowadays rather than going into a shop so while those four Ps are great um they're not necessarily uh effective right now so this is the thing with these type of issues is that um the illicit uh the the people who are working on this you know the the are are are really smart right and they're moving ahead and they're moving fast and they're moving faster than the rest of us at times and uh so we have to keep up with the new technology and new technolog is important so um and this is we're trying to catch up is with the e-commerce issue so um thank you for the question though well this brings us to the end of our event I I'd like to thank the panel profusely as well as all the contributors to the publication and I'd like to thank uh everyone who's come to this event as well as everybody online thank you very much and this has certainly given us enormous food for thought going forward so this is just the beginning let's say of our work in this area thank you for