Was wondering if you had some advice on how best to post this video clip of my panel speaking in Dubai on Linked In. We just got these posted on the event web site youtube links.
I am on the DP World Global Freight Summit panel titled, “Trade in the Americas: Growth, Innovation and Resilience” with a US colleague Amit Kalra, Chief Supply Chain Officer at Staples. I was invited as a US rep of the Life Sciences, Medical Supply Industry. I speak first in the first 5 min and again at min 15-20. Moderator is actually Laura Buckwell, a Dubai based British TV News Anchor and Event MC.
Panel
Trade in the Americas: Managing Growth, Innovation, and Resilience
Moderator
Laura Buckwell, Broadcast Journalist and News Anchor
Speakers
Amit Kalra, Chief Supply Chain Officer, Staples
Miguel Victor Cruz Méndez, Chairman of the Working and Technologies Commission, ALACAT
JM Lemos, Operational Manager, Marcon Serviços
Vic Suarez, Founder & Principal Growth Partner, Blu Zone Bioscience & Supply Chain Solutions
I am not so savvy at all with digital media editing and wondered if you had some thoughts or suggestions versus me just posting the whole 23 min video.
Laura (Moderator): For a background in biotechnology, advanced developer and a summit representative of the pharmaceutical and medical supplies industries, what would you say is the strategic significance of the Americas in the global trade arena as well as the role that the Americas actually play in the future of the economy?
Vic: All the economy I think the big thing from a strategic standpoint is when you look at North and South America you have four countries that represent for the pretty much the largest economies in the world. So when you add the United States, you add Canada, Brazil, and then Mexico, you have the number one largest economy with USA, nine and 10 with Canada and Brazil and 12 with Mexico, the total GDP combined for those four countries is about equivalent to the rest of the world when you include China. So you’re looking around 33 trillion in GDP. So that’s a lot of economic gross domestic product that’s coming out of North and South America. I think the second thing from a strategic standpoint is that the trade agreements that have been implemented within North and South America have allowed for a lot of good, smooth regional trading with partners like the USMCA, the United States, Canada and Mexico agreement that was signed in 2020, as well as the Pacific Alliance with some of the countries in South America that have used that to do trading with Asia and opening up Asia markets into South America. I think the third thing that makes North and South America very influential in the world is that the two continents are fortunate in having access to a lot of oil, gas, and agricultural resources. These are key things that not only power the rest of the world, but also can feed the rest of the world with food security. We have great produce, we have good farming, and that can actually feed other countries that don’t have the soils to produce food for the rest of their countries. I think the next thing is we’re a big tech innovation hub. And some of our colleagues are gonna talk about technology innovations, but just in North America alone, with Silicon Valley being really the inventor and the generator of a lot of technologies, we had some of those people with us yesterday. We also were a leader in biotechnologies, right? The next round of medicines that actually can move from just treating chronic disease to actually getting to the root cause and curative medicines. We are a leader in biotechnologies. And I think finally, we are the gateway that connects the economies between Europe and the flow of trade from Europe to the Americas. And then on the Pacific side, we are a trade route from Asia to the Americas. And that gateway is a really good strategic position to be in. Back to you, Laura.
Laura (Moderator): Please sort of like the high-end luxury goods and perishables and things like that to get that sort of quality received at the end of the supply chain a lot of you know technology is being leveraged for that I understand so what type of sectors do you think this is sort of affecting and what type of technology are we talking about and doesn’t that also instigate a lot of competition because everyone’s jumping on this now so what do we need to do so as to not leave lower income states or even countries out what needs to be done?
Vic: Sure Laura, I think that some of the technologies we’re seeing, that allows for better visibility or some of the Internet of Things. These are devices that can connect with other devices that certain companies have, whether it’s in the manufacturing realm, whether it’s in some type of a hospital setting, where you can actually connect those devices to the Internet, and then a central location or a series of partners can actually monitor what’s going on with those devices. What this does is that it reduces a lot of error, reduces the need for manual intervention a lot of times. You can do sometimes remote diagnostics on some of these machines. And you can determine whether or not you have to intervene for let’s say a preventive maintenance cycle or recalibration. That changes the entire dynamics of how we used to do things which was based on a calendar or some other preplanned interval. That could be more efficient and it’s more precise in nature. It allows, especially when you’re talking about things like perishable goods, like food, we can track now with certain devices, and I know DP World and their partners have the ability to do continuous monitoring. The legacy technologies was a data logger that just passively would monitor temperature control. And you would only find out if that food or that medicine spoiled after the fact. The technologies now that DB World and some other partners are integrating have real-time continuous monitoring. And what that does is it allows all the people in the supply chain to see where that cargo is, where that shipment is, and if it’s frustrated. And if it’s frustrated in a location where it’s not properly temperature controlled, it could be rapidly fixed so that we don’t lose that product and then that product gets back to the consumer the client in the highest quality possible and when we’re talking food the last thing we want to do is give you food that might be contaminated or spoiled and in medicines with pharmaceuticals the industry that I come from you’re more likely to get a higher quality medicine if the medicine is in the right temperature the humidity controls so that you can get the right safety and efficacy of that medicine. So it’s really important for a lot of factors, but food and medicine. Now going to your last point about, you know, how do we make sure as we’re doing this trade that certain economies and countries don’t get left behind? I think this is a very important point, and I think this is where we’re seeing an update in a lot of the trade agreements that were made post World Trade Organization formation in the 90s saw that a lot of those trade agreements favored large economies. But at the same time, over time, those large economies felt that some of the countries that they were trading with, there was a huge, there was a huge disparity and so some of those larger economies, their rural areas were left behind as far as closing down manufacturing sites, to smaller economies that increased manufacturing, but they didn’t really look at things like looking on the effects of the environment and pollution, or maybe even how they treat their workforce. So what we’re seeing with more modern trade agreements like USMCA, was that they started to learn from some of those previous trade agreements and they said, hey, let’s redesign this so we can account for things like intellectual property and patent protection for innovation. Cause the last thing we want to do is have a trading partner where there’s two disparate economies, you know, the currency rates are different and you have one country that potentially steals technology and then sells it on a different market. Well, that innovator company that owned that technology, that intellectual property, has no incentive to actually make something new or trade with that country. And then venture capitalists and those that are investing in those companies for innovation are less likely to invest if they believe that their innovation is just going to be exported without any licensing deals. So I think we have to really create trade agreements that really have the spirit of shared prosperity and a recognition that there’s different levels of economies and that we always look at the workforce as well so that those people are not left behind and that companies and I challenge really the business owners in this this audience That look at the long haul don’t look at how you’re just going to make a profit in the next quarter or the next one Or two years if you really want a resilient supply chain that delivers quality high quality products consistently in the long run then you want to invest and you want to work with those governments to instill those long chain those long-term uh effects on supporting the environment workforce development and security as well as making sure that we we look at trade uh in light of the different economies that we’re trading amongst.
Laura (Moderator): Some brilliant advice there and thank you so much. A brilliant overview as well. Very quickly, we are sadly running out of time, so back over to you Amit very quickly. Tell us about when it comes to rethinking supply chains and redistribution globally. So let’s go for a sort of global scale now. What do we need to think about do you think to safeguard for a quicker more resilient more agile future do you think?
Amit: I think the world of global economy is changing very rapidly. I mean, we heard his excellency, share his vision yesterday about how DP World is helping a lot of change. But what I would say is, I think there are a lot of opportunities now that are available for everyone.
For years, there was a very sound supply chain as well as production capability coming out of East Asia, China in particular, and when many companies would have export distribution centers over there, products would just come in and just import into America’s, but that world is rapidly changing, you know, with the global trade, you know, sanctions, bunch of other things, that world has completely changed.
Now we import a lot of product out of Greece, Mauritius, India, not just China. And what it does is it opens a lot more avenues for a lot of freight forwarders, a lot of companies which are essentially developing in other parts of the world, that product is now coming from different parts. So for a global location like Dubai, Middle East, is a very good hub where all of these products can come in and then flow into America’s.
There’s a lot more nearshoring happening, you know, whether it’s Mexico or whether it’s LA, we are basically thinking about import distribution centers there, which is unheard of. So I think that a lot of opportunities now available for all parties in global trade and we need to just think about how do we reduce that cost to serve, how do we bring speed, how do we bring that innovation together so that if you can be flexible you’ll find a much wider more receptive audience in America which is very willing to do trade with you and that’s the opportunity that we all have and I think we all are excited about.
Laura (Moderator): Thank you so much. We have a minute left. So Miguel, I’m going to give you the final words. What type of growth prospects would you say there are in general, just to summarize in terms of what there is in America? What is your advice when it comes to unlocking America’s trade potential?
Miguel: Thank you, Laura. Just a few words. As the people said yesterday, the region in Latin America or America has the second largest potential after Africa. So I invite you to go to Latin America, to the Americas to do businesses. We have the new shoring, we have a lot of potential, we have location, we have technology, we have everything
