Greener economies through digitalisation

Christine Bliss

Digital and services trade play a crucial role in promoting sustainability by enabling effective management and processing of data information. This is particularly significant in creating knowledge about the composition, origin, and properties of products, which are essential for making sustainable choices. Moreover, digital technologies facilitate the efficient monitoring and analysis of environmental data, further supporting sustainability efforts.

However, there are challenges posed by restrictions on digital and services trade, which hamper environmental services trade and hinder the use of digital technologies for promoting sustainability. In recent years, there has been a concerning increase in services trade restrictiveness globally. Barriers to cross-border data transfers have emerged as the most prevalent obstacle, impeding the flow of data essential for sustainable decision-making.

For instance, the Information Technology Foundation has found that 144 restrictions limiting the cross-border flow of data have been imposed by 62 countries. These measures undermine the potential benefits of digital connectivity and hinder international cooperation towards sustainable development.

On a positive note, artificial intelligence (AI) and digital technologies have proven invaluable in climate monitoring and promoting sustainability. FloodBase, a small business founded and owned by women, uses digital technologies to monitor, map, and analyze floods and flood risks in climate-vulnerable communities worldwide. Such initiatives enable better preparedness and response to mitigate the impact of natural disasters, ultimately contributing to sustainability.

Additionally, green data centres have emerged as a crucial component in the storage, maintenance, and dissemination of data, designed to maximize energy efficiency and minimize environmental impact. This highlights the potential for digital technologies not only to enhance sustainability efforts but also to reduce their own carbon footprint.

To further promote sustainability, strong services and digital rules are required to foster research, innovation, knowledge sharing, and decision-making. It is vital to address challenges such as the introduction of customs duties on e-transmission and restrictions such as local presence requirements, digital services taxes, and foreign equity caps. Such measures hamper the flow of innovative digital technologies that can be instrumental in advancing sustainability.

In conclusion, digital and services trade are instrumental in promoting sustainability by facilitating effective data management, supporting climate monitoring, and encouraging innovation. However, restrictions on cross-border data transfers and other barriers hinder the potential of digital technologies for sustainability. By implementing strong services and digital rules and overcoming trade obstacles, an environment conducive to research, innovation, and knowledge sharing can be fostered, contributing to global sustainability goals.

Audience

The discussion covered several important topics related to the digital economy and sustainability. One key point of contention was the GSI e-commerce principle of the free flow of data. It was argued that this principle can restrict countries from dictating the storage location and management of their data, potentially compromising data sovereignty and citizens’ data protection.

On the other hand, there was an argument in favor of countries having the ability to demand greener, less polluting data centers for their storage needs. The environmental impact of data centers, which consume significant amounts of energy and contribute to carbon emissions, has become a growing concern. It was emphasized that countries should have the authority to set standards for data centers to promote sustainability and reduce their environmental footprint.

Another significant point raised during the discussion was the role of algorithms in contributing to pollution. An example was provided, highlighting how an algorithm used by a company called Rappi resulted in unnecessary movement of delivery personnel, leading to increased pollution. It was suggested that countries should have access to scrutinize and influence the design of such algorithms to minimize negative environmental impacts. This underscores the growing importance of algorithm auditing and the need to incorporate environmental considerations into their development.

The discussion also highlighted the importance of addressing heterogeneity in determining policy agendas. Heterogeneity refers to the diversity of perspectives, contexts, and challenges that different countries and regions face. Initiatives such as the work being done by ESCAP in the Asia-Pacific region were recognized for their role in addressing this heterogeneity and facilitating meaningful conversations. These efforts aim to promote collaboration and ensure that policies are tailored to specific contexts to maximize their effectiveness.

Overall, this expanded summary encompasses the main points discussed, including concerns about data sovereignty, the importance of promoting greener data centers, the potential pollution caused by algorithms, and the significance of addressing heterogeneity in policy agendas. These discussions contribute to the ongoing dialogue on fostering sustainable and responsible practices in the digital economy.

Martina

According to the analysis, China is the largest implementer of digital trade restrictions, while Europe leads in implementing enabling digital trade policies. This highlights the contrasting approaches taken by different regions in regulating digital trade. The Asia-Pacific region has the most restrictive digital trade policies, while Europe implements the most enabling policies.

The analysis emphasises the importance of regulatory frameworks in digital trade, with evidence showing their significant impact. Open economies have greater incentives to engage in regulatory harmonisation. This underscores the need for suitable regulatory frameworks to facilitate digital trade, supporting economic growth and decent work opportunities.

Heterogeneity in digital trade regulations is particularly important for open economies. Diverse regulatory approaches can lead to additional costs for businesses involved in digital trade. However, countries like New Zealand and Singapore advocate for harmonising digital trade regulatory policies. This promotes a more cohesive digital trade environment.

In Africa, digital trade restrictions hinder trade in services and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) goods. There is a negative correlation between regulations and the import and export of ICT goods and services. These restrictions hinder the growth of crucial sectors and impede progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals of decent work and economic growth.

In conclusion, this analysis highlights the varying approaches to digital trade regulations in different regions. China implements digital trade restrictions, while Europe focuses on enabling policies. Regulatory frameworks are crucial, particularly for open economies where heterogeneity in regulations can introduce additional costs. The detrimental impact of digital trade restrictions on Africa’s services and ICT sectors is evident. Establishing enabling and harmonised regulatory frameworks is essential to facilitate digital trade, supporting economic growth and development.

Kevin Verbelen

The analysis highlights the crucial role of digital trade in promoting sustainability and competitiveness for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). By integrating software into their operations, Belgian SMEs that produce industrial ovens are able to conveniently monitor energy usage, emission production, and maintenance requirements. This digitisation allows for a reduction in raw material usage and service visits, leading to a decrease in CO2 emissions.

To effectively navigate digital trade, it is important to maintain the moratorium on electronic transmission. Without this moratorium, SMEs, particularly those engaged in producing industrial ovens, would face challenges in managing various aspects of digital trade, such as determining where and how much to pay different governments for data usage.

Global rules on e-signatures can play a pivotal role in enhancing digital trade and sustainability for micro businesses. For example, a micro business of lawyers, establishing a platform providing businesses with standardized contracts and digital archiving, would greatly benefit from global rules on e-signatures. Such rules would facilitate paperless trade, reducing the reliance on paper-based documentation and contributing to a reduction in CO2 emissions.

Furthermore, an expanded Information Technology Agreement (ITA) is necessary to facilitate affordable technology and internet infrastructure. This expansion would help in enhancing education, particularly in the least connected countries, and subsequently contribute to boosting GDP. A UNICEF study supports this argument, indicating that connecting schools in the least connected countries could add 20% to their GDP.

Overall, the sentiment of the analysis is positive, with strong support for maintaining the moratorium on electronic transmission, the Joint Statement Initiative (JSI) on e-commerce, and the expansion of the ITA. Notably, in the context of Ukraine, the digital services sector has shown growth, demonstrating the positive impact of these elements in a challenging economic climate.

This analysis underscores the significance of digital trade, the importance of supportive policies and regulations, and the potential for sustainable growth and development across different sectors. By leveraging digital technologies and embracing global rules and agreements, SMEs and micro businesses can enhance their competitiveness, reduce environmental impact, and contribute to economic growth.

Moderator

Digitalization has the potential to transform the economy in a more sustainable way. It is considered a powerful tool that can drive innovation and promote responsible consumption and production. However, trade barriers imposed by governments are hindering the progress of digitalization and slowing down efforts to combat climate change. This is an important issue because digitalization can play a crucial role in implementing sustainable practices and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

One of the main arguments put forward is the need to establish global rules for international e-commerce or digital trade. This is seen as an effective way to diminish trade barriers and promote sustainability efforts. The removal of barriers and the facilitation of digital trade can encourage the adoption of sustainable practices, particularly in sectors such as agriculture. Digitally enabled services are highlighted as playing a vital role in greening economies and promoting sustainable development.

However, the current restrictive measures and fragmented standards in digitally enabled services are identified as major obstacles to sustainability. These measures not only hinder the implementation of sustainable practices but also have a negative impact on trade. It is argued that greater harmonisation of regulations and the use of international standards are necessary to overcome these challenges. Furthermore, greater stakeholder participation, particularly of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), should be promoted to ensure the development of effective regulations.

The significant contribution of the data centres and ICT sector to global carbon emissions is acknowledged. It is revealed that the energy usage in data centres has increased significantly in recent years, contributing to environmental concerns. However, efforts to make these sectors more sustainable are also recognised, as they are gradually becoming greener and more efficient.

The importance of small businesses in adopting sustainable technology is highlighted. A case study of a Belgian SME specialised in the production of industrial ovens demonstrates how digitisation can help reduce emissions and raw material use. This serves as an argument in favour of maintaining the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions, as it enables small businesses to harness sustainable technology and reduce their environmental impact.

Digital technology is identified as a catalyst for revolutionising education. By connecting schools and making technology more affordable, it has the potential to significantly improve education outcomes, particularly in the least connected countries. Studies suggest that connected schools could increase the GDP of these countries by 20%. Therefore, the expansion of Information Technology Agreement (ITA) is seen as crucial for creating a more connected education environment.

The role of digital trade in sustaining economies, especially in times of crisis, is emphasised. In Ukraine, it is noted that the digital services sector is the only sector that has shown growth during economic difficulties. The establishment of global rules for e-commerce, including the moratorium on customs duties, the Global Services Index (GSI), and the ITA, is seen as essential in enabling countries in economic crisis to sustain their economies.

The negative impact of restrictive legislation on digital trade is addressed. The Asia-Pacific region is identified as the most active in implementing restrictive policies, which limits the use of technology for sustainability. It is argued that more open economies have the greatest incentives to engage in regulatory harmonisation, which can promote sustainable practices and enhance trade.

Efforts to remove trade barriers and facilitate digital trade are being made globally. E-commerce negotiations involving 89 members, including major economies such as the EU, China, the US, Brazil, and a diverse group of developing and least developed members, are underway. The discussions are chaired by countries like Australia, Singapore, and Japan, indicating a commitment to promoting digital trade and economic growth.

The inefficiency of current digital practices and the need for technological advancement are also highlighted. It is pointed out that invoicing processes involve cumbersome manual procedures that are not sustainable. The application of modern technology to trade is insufficient and needs to be improved to enhance efficiency and sustainability.

The introduction of new rules regarding e-invoicing and paperless trading is seen as a potential solution to improve processes and promote sustainability. It is estimated that each electronic invoice saves around $12, highlighting the inefficiency of the current system. The adoption of paperless trading rules reduces handling time and streamlines operations, making them more sustainable.

The importance of consumer protection laws for ensuring product quality and preventing deceptive conduct in e-commerce is emphasised. Agreed-upon and ambitious consumer protection laws are seen as crucial for building trust in digital transactions and promoting a fair and transparent e-commerce environment.

Moreover, the significance of making big government data sets freely accessible and reusable is mentioned. This can facilitate research efforts to fight climate change, as researchers will have better access to weather and environmental data. Spain’s Open Government Data Trial is cited as an example, as it has created thousands of jobs by enabling the reuse of government data.

In conclusion, digitalization has the potential to transform the economy in a more sustainable way. However, trade barriers and restrictive legislation hinder progress in digitalization and sustainability efforts. Establishing global rules for digital trade, promoting sustainable technology adoption by small businesses, and ensuring technological advancement are crucial. Efforts to remove trade barriers, facilitate digital trade, and make big government data sets accessible can contribute to sustainable development and combat climate change.

Amy Stewart

Amy Stewart, a prominent figure in e-commerce negotiations, has emphasised the crucial need for establishing global digital trade rules. Given her role as the chairperson of these negotiations, which involve significant global players such as the EU, China, US, and Brazil, her perspective holds great importance.

Stewart highlights the necessity of making the digital economy accessible to everyone, including workers, consumers, and small businesses. She advocates for the full utilisation of technology to enhance lives and streamline business processes. However, she expresses disappointment in the slow progress made in this regard, citing examples of persisting bureaucracy and outdated paper-based systems.

Moreover, Stewart calls for the implementation of a base level consumer protection law on a global scale. To support this argument, she shares a personal experience of an unsatisfactory online shopping experience. Additionally, she expresses concern over the concentration of power in major platforms like Amazon and Alibaba, indicating the need for regulations to prevent the abuse of power.

In terms of data regulations, Stewart firmly opposes data localisation laws. She argues that these laws can be easily overcome by large corporations with extensive legal resources, but they disproportionately burden small businesses. Furthermore, she points out the environmental impact of having to develop servers in every jurisdiction. Stewart’s stance highlights the need for a comprehensive approach that considers the interests of all stakeholders.

In line with her advocacy for an inclusive digital economy, Stewart emphasises the importance of negotiating rules around data flows, data localisation, and customs duties on electronic transmissions. She believes that establishing these rules will help create a more equitable and cohesive digital landscape. Not only will it make the internet a more inclusive place, but it will also mitigate the existing fragmentation within the digital economy.

Overall, Stewart’s arguments highlight the pressing need for globally accepted regulations in the realm of digital trade. Her perspective sheds light on the challenges faced by various stakeholders, including workers, consumers, small businesses, and the environment. By advocating for a fair and inclusive digital economy, Stewart calls for collaborative efforts to establish rules that address the complexities of data flows and consumer protection while building a more cohesive and accessible digital landscape.

Moderator:
All right. I think we’re going to give a start. First of all, thank you very much for joining us to this session. It has been a long week with many different sessions, sometimes many similar subjects and themes, so it’s a bit always complicated to attract the attention of the audience. So thank you very much for coming. The theme of this session is the greener economy through digitalization. So the idea is to try to demonstrate that digitalization is a tool to transform the economy in a more sustainable way. And we built this session around the first idea would be that we will give concrete examples of how the digitalization of the economy is effectively helping sustainability. And then we go by saying, unfortunately, there are more and more trade barriers through regulatory action by many governments, which are in very significant growth. Therefore, these barriers are going to slow down digitalization, which in turn will slow down the possibility to fight climate change and environmental problems. And then we will try to see whether it would be possible to find trade policy solutions to ensure that we don’t continue this race by raising more trade barriers, but actually to try to diminish these barriers and put global rules into place for international e-commerce or digital trade, as you wish. I’m very happy to have a very distinguished panel here for this panel. We’re going to start with Christine Bliss, who is a president of the U.S. Coalition of Service Industries in the United States, which will make a general of all the different benefits of digitalization. We will then follow up with Kevin Verbelen, who is the chair of the Digital Trade Policy Group of Digital Europe, as well as Senior Expert International Trade in Algoria, which is a Belgian big tech or tech and digital association in Belgium. Then Martina will follow suit. Martina is an expert into digital trade barriers around the world, and she got the courage of ranking countries to say that this one is a good one and the other one is not a good one, because they have erected some barriers. And I’m going very much to the details. And we will finish up with Amy, Amy Stewart from the Australian Mission, where she is in the lead of the ongoing joint statement initiative of the famous GSI negotiation on e-commerce here in Geneva, with 89 countries participating. And there are three core conveners, three countries leading the show, with Australia, Singapore, and Japan. And many thanks, Amy, accepting to join us in this panel. So without any further ado, I give you the floor, Christy. Thank you.

Christine Bliss:
Well, first of all, thank you so much to ESF and Digital Europe for inviting me to participate on this very distinguished panel. I really appreciate the opportunity. I think this is an incredibly important topic, and I know there’s been a large amount of data information that’s come out this week in various panels on sustainability. And from CSI’s perspective, I also wear the dual hat, along with Jane Craig-Brockman and Pascal and John Cook of co-chairing. the Global Services Coalition. So both from the GSE perspective and the CSI perspective, I think it’s incredibly important that the WTO did make the theme this week, sustainability. So absolutely endorse that. It’s particularly important from the services and digitally enabled services perspective. So my organization, the Coalition of Services Industries, represents U.S. firms on services and digital trade issues across a broad range of sectors, including financial services, tech, telecom, retail distribution, media and entertainment, and professional services. And our members include companies that both provide services and manufacture. And I think that’s an important point because I can say across the board our companies are very concerned and have various programs in place to promote sustainability. So it’s a huge theme and our members recognize the importance. So just wanted to give a bit of context to that. Digital and services trade have a very significant role to play in the greening of our economies. And this is true across sectors. And I just want to note from information the Secretary released that they looked at which sectors digital connectivity could best support the transition to sustainable development. And services was number one on that list. And I think that’s very, very important to note. And whether it’s to decarbonize supply chains, design and deploy green technologies, monitor and mitigate the impact of climate change, or improve organizational sustainability. capacity to act. Digital-enabled services are a critical part of the activity and operation in all those areas. Trade and environmental services can play an essential role in helping economies transition to a low-carbon economy. Such services are often embodied in environmental goods, as they’re typically integral to transferring and using low-carbon technologies. Whether it’s through the operation and maintenance of renewal energy generation, distribution products, advisory services on reducing emissions from vehicles, application of clean technologies in manufacturing, or services related to the inspection, certification, and testing of products and services produced with low-carbon technologies, just to name a few very specific examples. And now I want to go a bit deeper and highlight a few key examples of how digitalization and the use of digitally-enabled services are contributing to sustainability efforts, starting with the agriculture sector. And here, I’ll call it smart farming, just for shorthand. Digital technology is becoming a very important tool to make farming more sustainable. Smart farming approaches can reduce emissions producing inputs and water use, better manage livestock production and animal health, enable urban and vertical farming, and improve accounting of carbon sequestration. Through the use of precision agriculture, data is gathered and analyzed from sensors, tractors, and satellites. This data gives farmers the ability to more effectively use crop inputs, including fertilizers, pesticides, tillage, and irrigation water. More effective use of inputs means greater crop yield and more efficient use of technology. quality without polluting the environment. It has proved especially helpful in tackling fertilizer loss, a major contributor to water pollution and climate change. The next example I want to turn to is green data centers. And as the demand for data storage and processing continues to grow, particularly with the increased use of AI, so does the need for energy efficient and environmentally friendly data centers. And I think it’s important to understand this because this has been an area of controversy about the use of energy by data centers. So I think it’s important to point out how a green data center can be an effective and important part of the effort to promote sustainability. So a green data center is a repository for the storage, maintenance, and dissemination of data in which the mechanical, lighting, electrical, and computer systems are designed to maximize energy efficiency and minimize environmental impact. They use energy efficient technologies and renewable energy sources to reduce their carbon footprint. Emerging technologies such as AI, edge computing, 5G networks will play a significant role in the growth of sustainable data centers. For example, AI can be used to optimize energy consumption and improve efficiency, while edge computing can reduce the need for large centralized data centers. I now want to turn to the notion of circular economies. Information flows generated by digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, big data analytics, cloud computing. computing, blockchain, online platforms, 3D printing, can be centered as the main drivers of digital circular transition, allowing the collection and management and processing of data information and to create knowledge about the material composition of products, their origin and properties, their location, condition availability, as well as conditions for manufacturing, just to give you some examples of the role that digital technologies can play. Digital technologies enable automated decision making, optimized asset sharing, and reduced transaction costs and simplified prototyping. Digital technologies facilitate the transition to a more resource efficient and circular economy by helping to overcome obstacles that stand in the way of large scale deployment of greener business models, as well as a more effective delivery of circular economy policies. Digital technologies are pivotal to overcoming some of the barriers to scaling up of circular economy through their ability to monitor, interconnect, and manage objects in the physical world electronically. Digital technologies help unlock the potential of circular business models. Now I want to turn to climate monitoring, which is incredibly important and where digital enabled services play a huge role. Digitalization will allow solutions to address climate change from the private sector, including companies of all sectors. One such solution is from FloodBase, a New York-based, small, women-founded and owned business that uses digital technologies to monitor, map, and analyze flood and flood risk in the most climate vulnerable communities around the world. FloodBase uses global satellites and remote sensing AI to monitor risk and detect floods in real time. This unique technology requires zero ground equipment and provides governments and communities with accurate and trustworthy flood monitoring in almost 20 markets worldwide. Access to these technologies allows for entrepreneurs and small business owners to contribute to the global sustainability efforts, not to mention that by promoting policies that enable the use of digital technologies for sustainability efforts, we are supporting the inclusive growth of MSMEs. Now briefly to the challenges that we face, which are great. Digital and services trade restrictions both hamper environmental services trade and the ability to use digital and services trade for the purpose of promoting sustainability. Environmental governance regimes around digital trade remain in their very early stages and best practices in digital regulatory settings remain uncertain. We’ve seen an intensifying of divergence of domestic digital regulatory settings. The average cumulative global increase in services trade restrictiveness was five times higher in 2022 than in 2021, with barriers to cross-border data transfers topping the list. In fact, the Information Technology Foundation has calculated that 62 countries have imposed 144 restrictions limiting the cross-border flow of data. This has more than doubled in the past four years. So the latest research identifies a strong global correlation between high levels of digital regulatory restrictiveness and poor services trade performance. So I underscore this point because I think it’s an important point for governments to pay attention to, that it’s not only hampering their efforts to promote sustainability, but it can also hamper their overall services performance. And restrictive measures definitely affect trade and environmental services, inflating the costs of environmental projects in which they are used. For example, restrictions on the provision of environmental services can affect engineering and consulting activities, which in turn affect other environmental project components depending on these types of services for their operations such as renewable energy, smart agriculture and water treatment. Additional restrictions on services supporting trade and environmental goods and services can also negatively affect access to such products. So enhanced access to ICT services can play an essential role in the transfer and implementation of new environmental technologies. Where do we go from here? It’s important that we promote strong services and digital rules, including promotion of cross-border data flows, which will facilitate cross-border access to digitally enabled services that support sustainability efforts. Free and fair services trade and provisions that guarantee unfettered flow of cross-border data are necessary to drive sustainability research, innovation, knowledge sharing and decision making, using digitally enabled services to absorb, analyze and forecast based on sustainability data. We also want to note that preventing the introduction of customs duties on e-transmission and extending the WTO moratorium on commerce duties must be extended at MC13. Should the moratorium be allowed to lapse, exporters could face a chaotic customs regime with potentially non-administrable customs duties greatly affecting digital services imports and exports, which are necessary in the sustainability efforts. discussed today. The opening of market access to foreign service providers is also pivotal to allowing the flow of technologies toward a greener economy. Performance requirements, local presence, digital services taxes, foreign equity caps will only continue to hamper the flow of innovative digital technologies that can be used to promote sustainability, and we should be leveraging international standards where appropriate to promote these efforts. We should be adopting new disciplines to address the fragmentation of digitally enabled services standards, which is another barrier, including, as I said, promoting the use of international standards in areas such as privacy, cyber security, and AI. And this includes promoting transparency and greater stakeholder participation, particularly of MSMEs in the development of domestic regulations on digitally enabled services and digital technologies, and also in the development of international standards. And as we’ve discussed today, AI can be harnessed in many sectors to make greener supply chains. Finally, the GSI e-commerce framework might provide us with an important opportunity to promote these disciplines and support digitalization and use of digitally enabled services that are contributing to sustainability efforts. Let me stop there.

Moderator:
Thank you. Thank you very much, Christine, and I’m sure Amy will tell us more about the GSI negotiations. Before turning to Kevin, I also wanted to acknowledge, because I think we need to do properly the work of assessing that also it is true that the digitalization economy is also contributing to bigger carbon emissions. We have to acknowledge it. I mean, the data centers. talk about the energy consumption, but these centers are effectively big consumers of energy. So I wanted to find out a bit more about that, and three or four years ago I saw a figure that it might be actually contributing up to 3 percent of the global carbon emission, which is really significant, which is the same share, for instance, than the air transport or the shipping industry. And now there are new figures which have been circulated around, and it is now estimated that the information and communication sector, ICT as a whole, if you wish, is accounting for only one – only is not the right word because it is still big, but it is 1.4 percent of the global carbon emissions, and that is including the whole ICT sector. If you want to focus more and find more data on what the data centers only, the data centers, you know, the famous firms of a lot of aligned computers, it is estimated that they are actually contributing to 0.1 to 0.2 percent of the global carbon emissions. So it’s much less than what we have heard in the past, and I think it is important. They have been able to measure that between 2000 and 2018, the energy use in data centers has increased by 6 percent, so it has increased. But the computing workload, which have been enabled thanks to this increase of consumption of energy, has increased by 550 percent. So the benefit of what the digital and data center are contributing to is much more important than the price of increasing a bit the pollution. I think – I thought it was important to be fair, and we look also at that part of the metal. But now I go to Kevin to tell us more. Thanks. Yes.

Kevin Verbelen:
Thank you, Pascal, and thank you for inviting me on this panel that comes at a very timely moment. If we look at the time frame in which we are, we’re five months before the next ministerial conference. We’ve been here with many of the colleagues defending our interests of our members, and of course, for that reason, we’re also happy that Digital Europe will participate in this panel. I obviously underscore everything that Christine has said, and in order to add to that, I thought let’s look a little bit into a few other examples of businesses, perhaps the ones we’re not immediately thinking about when it comes to sustainability and the digital trade. And let me perhaps also link that then to what we have been asking here and advocating here this week. The first example I would like to give is a Belgian company, an SME, that produces industrial ovens for production of food, for instance, cookies, and yeah, everybody can build that. So there’s a lot of competition. How can you distinguish yourself then if you are a producer of an industrial oven? Well, these guys went to another Belgian company and they produced software, and the software is put onto the industrial oven, and with the software that they’re selling on that oven, they can actually monitor the use of electricity. They can monitor the use of, or the production of CO2 by that oven. They can monitor when the filters need to be replaced. They can do all of, they can capture all of that data in order to also adjust when the maintenance has to happen, or during the pandemic, as has happened with many companies, thanks to the sharing of data, it was also possible to even stay in Belgium and tell the maintenance people in the place where the client is located to actually perform certain maintenance to those ovens. And that is actually what is happening today for that company. They’re actually capable of saying… You have been using your oven at a lower rate for this moment, or at a lower intensity, or you have increased it. So actually, those filters, where we would have normally replaced them every six months, we can now actually adjust that. So if you have a lower intensity, those filters can actually take longer, which means you reduce the raw material used for the production of those filters. You don’t always have to go at location to check how the oven is performing. You can actually perfectly work, thanks to data and the sharing of data, work with the local people and actually let them do the maintenance performance. And so in fact, if you link that then to what we are advocating here, well, then it comes very quickly to mind that the moratorium is highly important. Because imagine that, to give an hypothetical example, they sold that industrial oven to an Australian cookie manufacturer. And they provide cloud services, but that is just interacting servers. If, to give a few examples, that server would be in Indonesia, and another server would be in India, and another one in the Emirates, how would that SME start to figure out where they need to pay and how much they need to pay to different governments because they have provided their data? So this is, in fact, a very clear example of why the moratorium is highly important. And that is not a question to do something new. It’s actually asking for the status quo. That’s what we’re asking. And that’s why it’s very important for that SME as well. Because again, how would an SME have the capacity to even go and figure out how much data is used on a server in India and how much data is used on a server in Indonesia? So that’s a very concrete example of a company of which we would not immediately think when we talk about data, why the moratorium is important. Let me go to another one. So it’s also maybe not something we’re immediately thinking about. That is another, we can call it even a micro company of lawyers. that put themselves together with a few programmers and they are working on a platform and companies, even one-person companies that have not the money to go to very expensive law firms, they can put a few of their informations in that platform, tell what business they’re doing, what their needs are, and the platform provides you with a standardized contract which you can use with your suppliers, which you can use with clients. And so this is a very small business, but then comes the next problem because if you also are going to archive digitally those contracts and you provide that service on that platform, well, we do not have global rules on confidentiality and we don’t have global rules on privacy and we don’t have global rules on e-signatures. Well, then I make the link to the JSI on e-commerce. If we could have global rules on e-signatures, for instance, well, this platform could not just work on the local market, they could expand and they could provide many more one-person companies with that type of service. So that’s another example that I wanted to give and actually link that to what we’ve been advocating for, which is a meaningful outcome on the JSI on e-commerce. It’s again, we’re not talking only about big business here, we’re really talking about sometimes very small businesses who come with a very innovative product, but they really need global rules because it allows them to actually expand on what they’re doing. And again, if we could have much more paperless trade, we could have paperless signing of contracts that also is helping us to reduce the emissions of CO2. So it’s also a sustainability project if you want it in that way. And then another point that I wanted to make is actually linking a little bit back to the pandemic that we have had, but there have been studies published. last year for UNICEF, where they, in that study, determined that if you would connect schools and have connected schools, you could actually, in the least connected countries, add 20% to the GDP, which is not a slow margin. But it’s simply because you can actually reach much more children, and you can provide a better education, and you can provide it in a more fluent way. What you need for that, well, in the first place, you need to have affordable infrastructure, internet infrastructure. You need affordable computers. You need affordable technology. And with that, there’s another point that we have been advocating for. We come to the ITA, and the expansion of the ITA. Schools would benefit, countries would benefit, even the least developed and the least connected countries would benefit greatly from having an expanded ITA. And so that’s the reason why, first and foremost, it would be very relevant to have much more countries join the ITA, and also further look into, as we have already mentioned, also in health care, as we have mentioned in sustainable products, if you would expand the product scope of the ITA, also there would actually add a lot of GDP in many, many different countries. And perhaps I want to make just the last comment, because it’s something that is relevant. If you would actually look at what is happening in Ukraine, the only sector that grew last year is the digital services sector. So why do I make that point here now? Just to add one more point, it is that actually the digital trade and the importance of digital trade, in the biggest of crisis, can actually be a lifeline for an economy. And I think that’s the reason why I wanted to add it here as well. It shows that the three elements that I’ve been taking up in my presentation… When we talk about the moratorium, when we’re about to talk about the GSI on e-commerce and when we talk about the ITA, that actually, if you put them all together, it can actually help many countries, not just developing, but also countries in crisis, to actually sustain at least a part of their economy in a midst of crisis. And with that, I’ll give back the floor.

Moderator:
Thank you. Thank you very much, Kevin. I think it’s interesting to have concrete examples that everybody can see, because otherwise, digital and bits going there and everywhere, nobody can understand exactly what we’re talking about. But effectively, we’re talking about the infrastructure, we’re talking about something concrete, which is helping every one of us, but also, and in particular, the SMEs. So thank you very much for these concrete talking examples. We will now turn to Martina, who is going to go through the trade barriers and into the digital sectors, which is growing very much. And we certainly argue that these trade barriers are impeding the development of the digitalization, including in the developing countries. And these barriers then automatically also will slow down the possibility of helping against climate change, because the sustainability will be slowed down. Martina.

Martina:
Thanks, Pascal. Well, nice to meet you all. I’m Martina, and I work as an academic. I’m at the European University Institute, that, if you don’t know it, is the University of the European Union, the only one. And we do academic research, which is applied to policy. So part of my work, and actually most of my work, is about looking at digital trade regulations. And Christine was talking about correlation between regulation and trade. Actually, we look at causal relation. We look at the cost of measures through empirical research on trade and services. policies on GDP, on innovation, and several other variables. And so today I will talk a bit about some of the research we did that measures the impact of digital trade regulation on trading services. But mostly what I will present is the result of a study we did, and we are still working on since over two years, which tries to map regulatory policies around the globe. And the reason is that if you want to do good policy research and empirical research on digital trade, we need to have good data. We need to have information about data flows restrictions across the globe that we are mapping, but also policies that have to do with the pipe procurements, intermediate liability, online payments, and so on. So we have 65 different indicators that we look at. We have mapped them across, for now, 123 countries. And I want to present you today a bit about this project, what we found, and which countries across the globe restrict or impose more restrictive policies on digital trade. And to do that, I have a presentation, because I have a lot of graphs, and it will be complicated to show you, to tell you about the database without showing some graphs, and you will see it there. So let’s see if it pops up. Do you know if we have to do anything? So just a sec. Maybe we have to switch on this. Okay, it’s on. Okay, it should be coming up. Or if you switch on. Okay, it’s on. Okay, it’s on. Okay, it’s on. Okay, it should be coming up. Or if you switch on. Welcome to the new technology. There is a light. Something is happening. Okay, now it’s giving me some signs. Yeah, it should be coming up. Yeah, okay. Sorry about that. I don’t know what happened. What I plan to do is, I will introduce you briefly, it went off, yeah, the Digital Trade Integration Project, which is the project I was talking about and show you some summary findings, and also introduce index we are working on and we will launch by the end of the year, and then quickly some empirical research. All of this in 10 minutes, so. And there are three main takeaways of my presentation. The first one is that Asia-Pacific is the region that is the most active at implementing restrictive policies on digital trade across the globe. Also Asia-Pacific is the most diverse, so you have very open economies, as we know, but also very restrictive economies. And I will show you a bit what is the ranking there. While the European Union is the most active region at implementing enabling policies for digital trade. The second takeaway is that regulatory framework matters for digital trade. Our empirical evidence shows that the policies that regulate digital trade actually have an impact, which sounds obvious, but also we need data to confirm that these policies actually are restriction and restrict digital trade. And we found an additional negative impact connected to heterogeneity. We know already from the research in trading services that regulatory heterogeneity adds additional costs on trade, and we have found that this is also the case for digital trade. And the third takeaway is that because regulatory heterogeneity matters the most for most open economies, these economies are those that have the biggest incentives to engage in regulatory harmonization. So it is not surprising that countries like New Zealand or Singapore are heading and promoting discussion on harmonization of regulatory policies on digital trade. So regarding that, our project, the DTI project, just quickly some points about what it is about. First of all, we have created a network of people across private sector. mostly public sector, universities, international organizations, and think tank that are regularly engaging on digital trade discussions with webinars, meetings, and try to exchange ideas across the globe with different geographical perspectives on digital trade. We have created a database that you can access online. There are already 123 countries mapped and we are in the process of adding 26 or seven more countries by the end of the year. And the third output of this project is the DTI index, which is now in progress and hopefully will be released by the end of the year. These are the partners of the project. We have four universities in Europe, the UI, Bocconi, and LSE. We have several think tanks. We have three regional commissions of the UN, the Commission for Latin America, Africa, and the Pacific. We have the DCO network based in the Middle East, and we have the TISA network that has joined several of the discussions. And these are the countries that are already mapped in our database. You can already find information online and the different partners that were in charge of collecting the data. And this is how the database looks like. So if you go online, you can select one of the 123 countries. You can select one of the 12 pillars that we cover. The pillars go from tariffs to IP, data flows, et cetera. And then if you select a pillar, you can select one of the 65 sub-pillars. And then you will find an entry with the country, the time frame, the law. And we always put the link to the law and the identification of the article in the law that justifies our entry. So you find all the information there, so you can browse it. And at the end of this month, the database will be updated, and we will include also the enabling policies online. For now, there are only the restrictions uploaded. And this is just to tell you that there is a methodology. I will not talk about it now. There is a working paper presenting it. to the 65 indicators and why we included those indicators. So about what we have in the database, just to tell you what you will find online, we have restrictions on one hand, and the restrictions follow the simple trade rational for including a measure. We include measures that create a differential treatment between domestic and foreign providers of digital trade services or goods. Restrictions that create a more restrictive treatment for online versus offline. So this could be the case in which a service is a different treatment when it is provided online compared to what you will get if it was provided offline. And then there are some measures that we include because they are especially trade distortive to achieve a non-economic objective. And an example could be the Russia data protection law that requires to store all personal data in Russia because of privacy. We know that there are alternative ways that are less trade distortive to achieve this objective. And then we have the enabling pillar in which we look at whether the country has adopted or not important policies that support digital trade. For example, consumer protection law, data protection laws, and all those international agreements like internet treaties, et cetera, connected to digital trade. Now, regarding findings. What did we find? First of all, this graph shows you the finding by region in terms of average number of policies implemented that are expected to restrict digital trade. What we see is that Asia in general, so South Asia, Central Asia, and East Asia and the Pacific on average impose the highest number of restrictive measures while Latin America, North America, and Sub-Saharan Africa are the least active regions in implementing restrictions. And if we look at it from an income perspective, we find that lower middle income economies are those that are most active at restricting digital trade. The other side of the coin is the enabling policies. What we find is that Europe and North America are the region. regions where the highest number of enabling policies are implemented. On the other hand, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Central Asia are the least active. And from an income perspective, we find that high-income economies are most active, as we would expect in implementing these policies, but also low-income economies implement quite some policies, while lower-middle-income countries are those least active in implementing these policies. Now from a regional perspective, I’ll show you some graphs of what we find regionally. In Africa, we find that the most active countries restricting digital trade are Egypt, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya. On the other hand, we find Madagascar, Namibia, Botswana, Eswatini. Always in Africa, for the enabling side, so countries that implement supporting measures, we find Ghana, Morocco, Uganda, Botswana implementing the highest number of enabling measures. And on the other side, we have Burundi, Ethiopia, DRC, et cetera. So what we see is that, on average, those countries that implement most restrictions are also those that implement fewer enabling policies, but that’s not always the case. Morocco is an example. They implement several restrictions, but also several enabling policies. For Asia-Pacific, China is by far the biggest implementer of digital trade restrictions. And we know it’s also because the exports and services, digital trade services from China and imports to China are very little. On the other hand, we find New Zealand, Vanuatu, Singapore, Hong Kong being those countries that implement only a few restrictions on digital trade. And on the enabling side, we find New Zealand, Singapore, Australia, Japan being the biggest implementers of enabling policies. And on the other side, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan are less active. In Latin America, Cuba, as we would expect, is very restrictive. like there is almost no internet publicly available there. Then Argentina, Venezuela, and Brazil. While smaller service-oriented economies like Panama, but Trinidad and Tobago are least restrictive. And we find that Colombia, Mexico, and Panama implement the highest number of enabling policies. And finally, for Europe and North America, we see that in Europe there is much less heterogeneity. So European countries implement very similar measures because a lot of those measures come from directives or regulations, but also they implement a lot of measures. While Canada and the U.S. implement fewer restrictions on digital trade, if you look at the enabling side, what is interesting is to see that U.S. and Canada also implement fewer enabling policies. While again, in the U.S., quite homogeneous. So what we find with simple correlation, so just putting the number of measures in one side of the graph and on the other side, FBI in digital projects and digital services imports, we find a negative correlation. So simply by looking at correlations, already we see that there is a negative relation between these variables. And I will show you now what we do also with causal relations in the empirical research part. So now about the index, what we are doing is to try to go beyond the simple number of restrictions. Already the number of measures gives a good insight about how active a country is in implementing policies, but we need also to give a weight and a score to each of the entries. As Pascal knows, because he’s giving a lot of advices on how to then address these measures. So what we did, and this is not yet public, what we do for each of the entries, we have created a methodology to try to give a score that goes from zero to one to each of the entries. Then we assign a weight, which is based on expert discussions. We’re now preparing a business questionnaire. And yeah, basically what we do is we transform our number of measures into an index. index. For now, we have a first preliminary finding, but we are still working on the index. Again, Asia-Pacific is the most restrictive region if we put together the restrictions and the enabling side, while Europe is the least restrictive. This is interesting if you compare with the graph I showed before, because Europe is implementing a lot of measures if you look at the number of measures, but when you aggregate the measures and give them a score, they are the least restrictive. And the reason is that on average, Europe likes to regulate, but also those regulations are not very costly for businesses, compared with the other regions. And again, just quickly showing you the rankings of the index by region. It’s very similar to the number of measures, something changes, but again, Egypt still remains the most restrictive country in Africa. Then we have China, followed by India, Russia, so here Thailand goes much down. So we have a lot of measures, but not as restrictive as India, for example, while New Zealand is the most open country, I think, actually in the world, if you put all the countries together. Then we have Cuba and Venezuela is the most restrictive in Latin America, while Panama and Jamaica are the least restrictive. And in Europe, we find France and Sweden. In Sweden, there are several data restrictions that now they are lifting. The US is the third most restrictive country, if we put it together with the EU, while Slovakia, Malta, Czech Republic are the most open. And again, simple correlation, if you put the index on one hand and the digital services imports and exports on the other hand, this is data for African countries. This is a report which is coming out hopefully this month, published by the UN Regional Commission for Africa. What we find is that there is a clear correlation between the index, which represents the digital trade regulation in Africa. and exports and imports of digital services in the region. And the same if we look at some pillars of our project, which are about goods. Again, we see that there’s a negative relation between regulations of TARES and other measures which apply to ICT goods imports and exports, and the imports and exports of these products. So empirical research, just one minute on this. What we did, two minutes and then I’m done. What we did here was to, I will not show you the table, just trust that there are good economists working on this, and this is also published in Academic Journal. So what we find is that digital trade restrictions matter for Africa, this is also for Africa. We find that the index is, there’s a causal relation between regulation and digital trade, so trade in ICT goods and digital services in Africa. And we also identify the highest, the pillars with the strongest impact, the strongest relation with digital trade in Africa. So we identified those pillars that represent important areas to focus on for negotiations in Africa to remove restrictions, and these are those that you see there, including data, public procurement, et cetera. And then we also looked at heterogeneity. So we look at how each country is doing compared with other countries at the bilateral level in Africa. So we then come up with some indexes to show how, for example, if a country is implementing the same type of public procurement restriction than another country, we look at regulatory similarity or heterogeneity. And what we find is that, again, simple correlation, heterogeneity is negatively correlated with digital trade and also with restrictiveness. And also we found that there is a causal relation, so we find that more heterogeneity leads to less trading, digital trade, but also this matters the most. most for more open economies. Because if you’re already very restrictive, the fact that you’re also very diverse doesn’t create an additional cost, but it creates a big cost for those economies that are quite open, and they have to deal with all these different regimes across the globe. So that’s it, and these are, again, the three takeaways that I showed you before. So I will not repeat them, but thanks for listening, and I’ll pass the word to you.

Moderator:
Thank you. Wow. I think this is really impressive, and you can scan the QR code if you want more information. Thank you very much, Martina, for this extensive presentation of what you’re doing. And actually, it’s not extensive, because I know you’re doing much, much more. It’s going very much to the details. And contrary to what I said earlier, it’s not only about trade barriers, but it is also enabling instruments which are there. And then the correlation between the two, I think, is very important, into the index. So I invite you to have a look at this trade index, which is a fruit of Martina, but Eric as well, Edmond Marrel, and other economists. So it’s a very interesting subject, and I thought it was interesting to present this work here in Geneva. It is not focused on sustainability, but we know that when there are some restrictive legislation for the digital trade, automatically it slows down the possibility to use this technology to be more on the sustainable side. But now that we know that there are some very large number of regulation in the countries, it means that there is no global root, and it means that there are heterogeneity. And therefore, that is also the reason why in this house, we hope that we will be able to enact some global rules for e-commerce, which would make things easier for companies to do more digital trade. therefore a fight against climate change and pollution and environmental damages. So I will give the floor to Amy so that she will tell us what is effectively happening in the city.

Amy Stewart:
Thanks very much Pascal and thank you to ESF and Digital Europe for bringing together such a really fascinating group for discussion today. I’ll be relatively quick because I’m keen to get into questions as well. I think there will be a rich discussion. So as Pascal mentioned, Australia, Singapore and Japan chair e-commerce negotiations in this house where 89 members including the EU, China, the US, Brazil and a diverse group of developing and least developed members are undertaking the not at all controversial task about what the future of global digital trade will look like and what global digital trade rules should be. So the objective is firstly to remove the trade barriers and facilitate digital trade and all the sustainability benefits that the other speakers have mentioned. But really as part of this we’re reckoning with the kind of global digital economy that we all want to see and sustainability in its broader sense both environmentally but also the world where workers, consumers, small business really have access to the digital economy in the same way that governments and big business does. So I wanted to share with you a few concrete examples about how we’re going about that task and some outcomes that we’ve already achieved. You know, first just speaking kind of anecdotally about what it’s like to be a citizen and a consumer in today’s digital economy. I think there’s still really a ways to go until we see all the benefits of technology making our lives easier. So in the year 2023 living in Switzerland which is last year the world’s most innovative economy ,it’s named the world’s most innovative economy. To do my business expenses someone sends me a letter out of Brunei a couple of days a time or three days a week at six o’clock in the evenings and every evening I read it before people go to sleep from reading it out loud. After I read it after I’ve read the letter it means say a full three days three days three days three me a letter in the mail with an invoice, carried by a vehicle. So, you know, both the envelope and the invoice itself are involved in cutting down trees. I print a form from my computer, I fill out the form, I scan it and I send it through the SAP system to our accounts department. And if you think that sounds, you know, pretty bureaucratic for the year we’re in, have a think about what’s happening on the border. While robots are conducting, you know, keyhole heart surgery, we have people on the border still with the same paper pads, with the pink copy and the green copy and the same duplicative documents going to people at all stages of the supply chain. You know, really we’re not seeing what technology is capable of applied to the trade world. So a bunch of different countries have been working on these issues for some time and we’re trying to bring all of those, that progress and those discussions to the JSI that we’re negotiating. So we have concluded a rule on electronic invoicing and the Singaporean government estimates that every single electronic invoice that is processed saves $12. So that gives you an idea of the manual processes that that’s replacing and the emissions that go along with that. We’ve also concluded a rule on electronic contracts, on paperless trading and the estimates there are that that rule will reduce the handling time of 30 minutes for every vessel. We’ve also agreed a rule on single windows. So, you know, it’s not just that series one of the internet hasn’t made things easier or more efficient and we want to contribute to those problems, but it’s also about how power and information is distributed and is concentrated in the world economy. You know, and I think we can all agree that as a consumer as well, in the early days of the internet things were a little bit wild west in terms of what consumers could expect. I personally tried to buy a present for my goddaughter in the United States. The company charged my card three times and never confirmed the purchase of the product. I had zero recourse. pathway around the world and that’s from you know a country with quite a strong regulatory regime. The consumers are only going to buy things from the big platforms until a base level of consumer protection is adopted worldwide. So it gives a concentrated power in the Amazons and the Alibaba of the world because consumers just don’t have that satisfaction in the level of protection that they’ll get really the world over. I’m not asking for a 30-day return policy here but just a base level of misleading and deceptive conduct and providing the product a product that works. So you know that’s going to help ensure that the wealth created by the internet isn’t just held by Jeff Bezos. So in the JSI we have agreed to the most ambitious consumer protection law rule that Australia has ever agreed and I think goes to the point Martina was making around the impact of consumer protecting laws and those enabling factors in the development impacts and the economic impacts of digital trade. You know the other thing that’s really interesting people are referring to data as the new oil because data and information is of course incredibly powerful and it has been traditionally held you know by governments by big businesses has been harder for the rest of us frankly to access. So if you look at things like big government data sets you know government data sets on weather, rainfall, in the environment, these huge data sets can really help us tackle the global problem of climate change and this could be a really good resource for academics but for people trying to work on these shared challenges when they when governments first became made these big data sets available they were often made available through proprietary software, APIs that had a cost involved with them or you know involved some other kind of burdensome process and so we’ve agreed an open government data rule in the JSI that when governments make that data available they do so in a way that is going to be freely accessible by civil society citizens without without that undue cost. So not only do we expect researchers around the world will have better access to geospatial and environmental data to help fund climate change and conservation research, early data suggests this will also create a large number of jobs. So Spain’s Open Government Data Trial found that they’d created 4,000 jobs generating about 300 million euros annually directly attributable to their pilot on making available and the reuse of government data. And then the issue that we’ve discussed today in terms of data localization and data flow and how crucial data flows will be to the global digital economy. You know people do talk about, as Pascal mentioned, the environmental impact of servers. Well if companies and even companies that hold people’s data for a business have to hold servers, have to develop servers with all of their environmental impact in every single jurisdiction, as data localization laws can require, obviously the environmental impact is, you know, is really replicated. And the other thing I would say about complex rules around data localization and not allowing data to flow is that the Googles and the Microsofts and the Facebooks of the world can surmount data localization rules. They have an army of lawyers and very smart public policy officials, many of whom used to negotiate trade agreements with me. And they will overcome the fragmentation of regulation that exists in the digital economy. The people who can’t or who find that task much more difficult in finding out what is happening on the ground in the very many jurisdictions are small businesses and micro entrepreneurs and we’ve heard a lot about that this week. So we are negotiating rules on data flows, data localization and customs duties on electronic transmissions. You know really with that in mind, that is going to make the internet hopefully a more inclusive place and to really set a floor around this fragmentation that we’re seeing that Martina described. So look, you know, the job is definitely not done, the agreement is not negotiated, but I hope I have shared a few concrete examples of how we are trying to envision. region, a fairer and more inclusive global digital economy, and really work on rules that will foster that at the WTO. Thanks, Pascal.

Moderator:
Great. Thank you. Thank you very much, Amy, for telling us what’s happening here. I think time is flying very fast, so I’d like to open the floor for any questions. Please.

Audience:
Oh. Okay. Okay. Hello. Yes. I’m Sofia Casara from Argentina. I heard a lot of interesting things that I took note, but there’s two things that worry me a little bit, and I wonder if you can expand on it. The first one is, you mentioned about green data centers, which is, like, really astonishing, and it’s really promising, but one thing that occurs to me is that with the free flow of data principle of the GSI e-commerce, countries do not get to do public policy among where the data is being located and how it’s being processed and how it’s being managed. So as a country, you won’t get to say, okay, I want my data to be stored in data centers that do not pollute as much or that are greener. You don’t get to say that because you don’t get to say anything about where your data is being stored. So I imagine that countries can’t do public policy among that, among saying, okay, I want my data to be stored in countries or in locations where we have greener data centers that are more efficient. The second thing is that the GSI e-commerce says that a country cannot access or require access to another source code or other algorithms, and we know that algorithms are pretty problematic, and sometimes they pollute. Like, for example, I have a really strong case in Argentina with the algorithm of Rappi that is a company of food delivery that used to assign tasks whenever the worker was moving around the city. even if it didn’t have a delivery package to deliver. So it was polluting the city, actually, because most of them go on motorcycles. Well, it was a trade union struggle. Finally, they changed the algorithm. And now you can see the workers standing at the front of the McDonald’s waiting for the orders. So that’s an example of how an algorithm was polluting. And maybe if an authority could check on that and could say, no, you need to change that in order not to pollute. And then you are back in business. I mean, you can do whatever you want and earn as much money as you want. We wouldn’t be having that problem. And with the AI Act and everything, you see that auditing algorithms is becoming more important, and also on technological transfers to become more efficient. So I’m wondering how to combine these two things. Because it seems like everything is perfect with the JSI, and everything’s going to become perfect whenever we sign it. But when you see the, like, the Spanish word is claroscuros, I don’t know this word in English. But when you see, like, the two sides of the coin flipping, and you see, OK, everything is not as bright. Maybe to leave some kind of public policy will be good, because we don’t know how the technology will pollute the environment in the end. We’re just starting to understand that. So I don’t know. That’s what, if you want to expand on that.

Moderator:
Thank you. Thank you very much for these questions. I have one here. Jane, and if any other, we take two or three before going to the end.

Audience:
A comment and a very quick question, but I wanted to continue. Jane Drake-Brockman from the Australian Services Roundtable, but also a visiting fellow with the Institute for International Trade. And Peter’s here, too. And you had our logo up there as one of your sponsors. So just to say what a fantastic piece of work this has turned into. In the Asia-Pacific region, we do already see this work being deployed by ESCAP in determining the policy agenda going forward. because the work on heterogeneity is extremely important. It helps you see where you might more readily start your work with the things where it might be restricted, but there’s less heterogeneity and easier to have a conversation. So I just wanted to say thank you. And I haven’t seen all of the work for the other two regions, but in Asia Pacific, having a dramatic policy impact.