I want to extend my warm greeting to you all as you attend this important International Finance Forum. I am very sorry I can’t be with you for obvious reasons this year. The topic that’s been chosen, sustainable development under global challenges, is extremely timely, given the circumstances that we find ourselves in and all of us are considering what needs to happen next as fiscal and monetary policy stimulation is coming to an end, many are wondering whether there will be asset bubbles that we will have to deal with.

As the global impacts of the supply chain continue to be constrained, new investment and new innovative moves are being required within economies and across economies to think of new ways as to how they can manage this and many globally are worried about the inequality that has actually become more magnified during this international pandemic.

We know that some people have not lost anything during this period, others have lost everything and far too many people have lost their lives. As we consider what happens next, there are clearly three challenges we need to take into consideration. How we control future pandemics and how we work together to achieve that. How we try and resolve and promote economic recovery, both within our economies and across economies, dealing with the reality of new challenges in terms of global geo-political tensions, but also the need for us to continue to go back to our multi-lateral devices where we can find our way through these difficult times. And of course the world is demanding and the globe itself is demanding that we find ways to move forward as we control environmental impacts of seven and a half billion or more people and our living style and its impact on this Earth.

All of it is going to require new efforts and perhaps new thoughts and ways of working together. I remain completely convinced that multi-lateralism will be the main device, but it won’t be good enough to just rely on the old institutions. We need to ask questions as to whether or not for example there is a new institution required to deal with rapid pandemic effects. We know that the mobility of people has changed the world in the last fifty years, but our institutions that support multi-lateralism haven’t adjusted at the same level. We’ve talked a lot about reform, we can’t wait any longer and I hope that the leaders both within these institutions and the countries that fund these institutions, will actively review the current infrastructure and make the necessary decisions as we go forward.

It will also be very important that bi-lateral relationships focus on these three areas, recovery of the pandemic, how we deal with economic recovery and how we respond to climate. It is not enough to just leave every economy to try and deal with these things themselves because we begin from unequal positions, so collaboration and cooperation, but also bi-lateral leadership and support, along with multi-lateralism is going to be critical if we are to make progress.

One of the things that concerns me most is when we consider these challenges, is the risk that we will slip back into protectionist behaviour. There have been glimpses of this and often quite unjustified explanations as to why these actions are happening. We cannot go back and repeat some of these mistakes of the past and I urge those at the conference who will give advice and leaders present and watching, to think carefully about whether or not we move forward progressively or we fall back to some of the old behaviours that dominated some of the disappointing periods of the last century.

In the years to come, while governments will have to be agile in finding ways to respond to these new challenges, the private sector must also step up. We can’t expect governments to do everything and indeed in the last two years, governments have demonstrated that they have been willing and able to make extraordinary efforts to support the global economy and the social needs of its people. But this is not sustainable and so the private sector will also need to innovate and help solve these problems together. That has happened. We’ve seen enormous collaboration in research. We’ve some pharmaceutical companies being able to work with others. We’ve seen some relief in the area of IP and whether or not they are prepared to make drug formula available to small and large economies and these are important steps and indicators of collaboration. I have no doubt that more will be required and it’s also been clear that economies like China have been willing to support other economies and this support multi-laterally and bi-laterally, is critical and will be again in the future.

So as we look ahead, there are meaningful decisions that need to be made. The question of how we get inter-agency cooperation I know is going to be addressed at this conference. We will need regulators to be bold in balancing science with the agility needed to bring speedy decisions through, so things like pandemics can be responded to and be available to people across populations, more rapidly than ever before.

The reality is that our leaders are going to have to be pragmatic and also decisive, and so I want to again remind us that we sit on this precipice of having to move away from just using sustainability as a cliché to a time when we need to make sustainability in our actions in the economy and the social setting and in ecology or ecological outcomes, more meaningful than ever before. And so they need to be worked on together and in an integrated fashion, not separately as if they are some way disconnected or someone else’s problem.

I believe that the programme that the IFF have set up for this conference is incredibly well positioned to assist us in our thinking, the leadership required and detailed actions that will assist. As always, the conference has put challenging issues on the agenda. We have got global inflation and debt relief and economic risk. We’ve got global taxation policy, which is exercised in many economies around fairness and the detail in which it can be delivered. We’ve got digital finance, a challenging but completely important area within and across economies. And of course global carbon pricing and the US China relations and other global geo-political challenges that we face.

I am proud of the IFF because it doesn’t duck the difficult issues. It puts them in front of us and it  invites the finance sector, the leadership of global economies, the ENGO sector and the private sector to come together and be solution focussed.

I wish you well as you enjoy this conference as you bring your experience and intellect together and your commitment to move forward. I look forward to seeing the outcomes of the conference and wish you well as you go through this important process.