Getting Globalization Right: IFC Press Conference

Prague, Czech Republic, September 24, 2000

PROCEEDINGS

MR. CONSTANTINE: I think we should get started. Thank you for coming. We are going to be hearing from Mr. Peter Woicke, the Executive Vice President of IFC and Managing Director of the World Bank Group for private sector development.

In addition to Mr. Woicke, we have on his left Ms. Nemat Shafik, who is the Vice President for Private Sector Development in Infrastructure at the World Bank. And on my immediate left is Mr. Assaad Jabre, who is IFC's Vice President for Operations.

Mr. Woicke will make a brief opening statement and then we will open it up for questions.

MR. WOICKE: Thank you. Good morning. Sorry to be a little bit late. I hope we are not as confused when we make investments as we were finding this room here.

What we wanted to do today is basically present our Annual Report. Our fiscal year runs to June to June 1999 to 2000. But before I do this, I wanted to say a few words about globalization, which is obviously one of the topics around this meeting here.

I think on the fundamental level the debate is framed by many as though we have a choice anymore. The IMF and the World Bank Group are seen very often as facilitators of this process. For me, for us, globalization is today a fact. Information technology, the capital markets, the interconnectedness of the world which Jim Wolfensohn also spoke about I think is beyond the debate. And from our point of view the good news is that globalization we think actually offers enormous opportunities to our clients in the developing countries and can contribute in a major way to poverty reduction.

But we also recognize, of course, that there are some big risks involved in globalization. And in line with our mandate to help build the private sector in the developing countries, we have always defined our role to bring private investment to our client countries. And what we really want to demonstrate is that mobilizing additional private sector money, advising businesses and governments can make a big contribution to the development of these countries.

We should not forget that it is proven that the private sector creates six to ten times more jobs today in the developing countries than the public sector does. So, how can we help to send some of these sharp edges of globalization which clearly are there?

We are talking a lot about the issue of inequality. Countries, regions have reformed very aggressively. They have privatized, but what we find very often is that there is still the same inequity of distribution as there was ten years ago. Very often privatization causes layoffs of people. And we are trying very hard to make globalization to find the positive sides for globalization and bring the positive sides of globalization to our countries.

Of course, we have to admit the IFC is not a huge organization. We have also limited resources only. So we have tried to focus on certain areas, strategic areas. And what we think is most needed in the developing countries is, number one, infrastructure. We find that increasingly governments, as I said before, look at their budgets and don't invest anymore in infrastructure. So, the private sector has to take over. And in many of our countries where we are active, the private sector does not have yet access to financial markets, to international capital markets, and that is where we think the IFC has to play a major role in infrastructure.

The second area in which we have made a strategic objective of ours is to develop domestic financial markets. Developing countries distinguish themselves from developed countries that they don't have deep financial markets. The private sector doesn't have access to medium-term credit. The private sector doesn't have access to equity. So, we have made it one of our main strategic objectives to invest in domestic financial markets. We are investing in commercial banks. We are providing technical assistance to teach these commercial banks how to do credit, how to risk assets/liabilities, how to manage assets/liabilities. We are investing in leasing companies. Leasing companies are very often the first providers of medium-term credit. We are increasing investment in housing banks which extends the yield curve in these domestic markets.

The third point which is very much related to the second building domestic financial markets is that we think we have to pay increasing attention to the small and medium-sized entrepreneurs.

So in terms of bringing the benefits of globalization to these countries which yet have to benefit significantly, we, as we have shown in our Annual Report, have substantially increased our investment in frontier countries. We have, in fact, tripled our commitments to Sub-Saharan Africa last year, and again I emphasize we have tripled our commitment to Sub-Saharan Africa, which I believe makes us probably the largest private provider of funds to Sub-Saharan Africa.

In terms of mobilizing private resources, I am happy to report that the syndicated loans last year have increased 67 percent to reach $1.5 billion. This is in addition to the $3-1/2 billion which the IFC does on its own account.

In terms of creating stronger domestic financial markets, which I talked about, nearly 50 percent, in fact 46 percent of all our investments now go into domestic financial markets, as I said, setting up banks, leasing companies, microfinance, institutions, et cetera, housing banks.

In terms of helping build the fundamental services for both quality of life and local business--water, electricity, transportation and telecommunications, including the Internet--almost a quarter, 23 percent of all of our investments have gone into infrastructure.

Our member countries need to be able to take advantage of e-commerce, e-education and e-health services. I am very happy to say that we have made the first investments in this sector as well.

In terms of helping supplement inadequate government resources and improve quality of service in the social sectors, the IFC is now looking carefully in investing in private education and private health services. We have over the last two years made some initial investments in this area and they are reaching now still a small 3 percent.

In terms of proving that business in developing countries can be profitable, I am very happy to report that in absolute terms we had our second best year in the history of the IFC, reporting a net income of $380 million. for us, as you know, profitability is one aspect; developmental impact is another aspect. But we think it is particularly important for our frontier countries that we prove that to do business in these countries can be profitable, and I think we have proven that. By the way, our Sub-Saharan African portfolio is profitable indeed.

In closing, let me touch on two particular priorities and look a little bit at the future. Environmental and social sustainability or sustainable development: This was clearly once one of our weaknesses. I think now I can proudly say this is really the strength of the IFC. We have one of the, in my opinion, best and largest social and environmental specialists at the IFC. We have policies and procedures in place. We have now also accountability. We have introduced an ombudsman, Meg Taylor, who people who feel affected by any project from the IFC can call on.

We are increasing our environmental investments, including alternative energy, and we are going to be more aggressive in that in the future.

We also intend to use our convening power because we work at the interaction of the public and private sector to help reach a consensus on environmental and social policies among other international institutions working with the private sector.

In terms of our participation in financing extractive industries, a number of NGOs have called on us to stop financing such projects. We disagree for reasons which are well-known to this particular community. I, therefore, am very happy with Mr. Wolfensohn's proposal to explore whether an international and balanced commission could help us resolve this issue.

And finally and of central importance, if we are to create opportunities for the poor and frustrated entrepreneurs, I have said this already, we are in the process of substantially boosting our support for SMEs. This is where the jobs are being created today, and this is, by the way, an area where tomorrow I will challenge many of our present clients and friends in the business community to work closer with us.

By the way, if you have time, Harold Rosen, who is responsible for the Joint Department IFC and Bank for the SME business will be available for the discussion later on.

This is what I wanted to say and now both Minouche, Assaad and I would be happy to answer any questions you have.

Thank you.

MR. CONSTANTINE: Questions? Please identify yourselves.

QUESTION: NGOs blame you for some projects in Chad and Cameroon, a pipeline I think. What do you think about it? They said that a lot of people are killed because of this project. What do you think about it?

Thank you.

MR. WOICKE: Well, I think this goes generally at this issue whether the IFC should be involved in financing extractive industries. Let me say upfront that I think, as I told you, that we feel that there is a benefit of the IFC, the World Bank being involved in these projects because, as I mentioned to you, we have I believe very high environmental and social requirements which we put on these projects. And I do think that we can help making these projects environmentally and socially much sounder than if we wouldn't be involved.

And the Chad-Cameroon pipeline is a case in example. This project where oil was discovered in Chad some 25 years ago would have gone ahead probably in a very different configuration. I think the way that the sponsors led by Exxon insisted in the participation of the World Bank and the IFC and that allowed us to do a number of things.

Number one, our experts insisted that the pipeline was literally rerouted so as not to affect certain prime jungle areas. That we achieved. Secondly, our social experts literally walked the whole pipeline, talked to all the people around it, talked to the indigenous people and make sure that socially this pipeline project was done in such a way that people were least affected.

In that respect, I think there is a role for the IFC and the World Bank in that respect. I think the World Bank and the IFC did add a lot of value to this particular project and we should be involved in it.

Now let me also add at the very end that all of these projects, when they are done, whether we are involved or not, they bear risks. We are in a risky business. Whether you do a project today in northern Europe or the United States or Latin America or in Africa, extractive industry projects bear risks. But because there are risks involved, I don't think that we shouldn't be involved in them.

QUESTION: Skietki [ph], Czech Radio.

Can you please comment on the results of your investments in the Czech Republic?

MR. WOICKE: Sure, I would be happy to.

We had investments in the Czech Republic from the early 1990s on. The Czech Republic is a classical case, which is what we call graduating away from us. It's a country which has now access to capital markets, which has increasingly a healthy domestic capital market. This is a situation where we think the IFC is not needed any more, where we would be competing with the private sector, and we clearly are not in the business to compete with the private sector but to be as a catalyst to bring the private sector into region sectors. In that way, I would hope--and I think it's happening already--that the Czech Republic for us is turning into a donor country rather than a receiving country.

QUESTION: Paul Tennisee [ph], Labor Magazine.

There seems to be a recurring theme throughout the interventions at both the IMF and the World Bank by various officials. That is, that even though we are having growth and a kind of recovery, there is a serious problem of distribution.

Now, evidently, from what you have just said, you're making a lot of investments and assisting financial markets, and to develop them. What are you doing in terms of coordination with the programs of the World Bank to see that those investments that you make are having some kind of redistributive effect so that it could have an effect on the fundamentally poor, because evidently overall that is your objective.

MR. WOICKE: Well, one thing we're doing is--first of all, the work of the IFC and the World Bank is increasingly being integrated. One of the examples is the person who is sitting in front of you. I think I'm the first person who is a Managing Director of the Bank as well as the EVP of the IFC. That was a first.

We have also for your information created now five departments which are integrated, IFC and World Bank departments. Let me just say that Minouche Shafik, who represents the private sector development group in the World Bank, which is to a large extent an advisory group--it is a group which is financing the infrastructure, electricity, water, telecoms, et cetera, et cetera--is reporting to me. Those five integrated groups are oil, gas, mining, telecoms, advisory, and the SME sector. So we have better integrated work within the Bank and IFC.

Perhaps even more importantly, if you look at the latest CASs--CASs are the country assistance strategies which we do--the latest CASs, we have a real integrated CAS now which was not always the case; we admit this. But today we find it absolutely necessary. If we look at the strategy of the IFC in a country and the strategy of the World Bank, they have to be very integrated. So we hope that the projects which we finance are very much in line with what the Bank is trying to do and vice versa.

MS. SHAFIK: In addition to the issues that Peter has raised, I think one of the things we have done increasingly now is to try and solve the distributional question within our own operational projects and to try and get the private sector to actually serve the poor directly in creative ways. I will just give you two examples.

The power sector in Argentina, we did some work recently where rural dwellers, about 1-1/2 million rural inhabitants didn't have access to electricity. But by designing a negative concession where we said to the private sector we want you to serve this poor community--and we know it is not profitable--but tell us what is the minimum subsidy you need to serve this community and we will pay that. And so that was a way to harness both the efficiency and dynamism of the private sector while at the same time making sure that the poorest communities are served.

Another example is K-Rep which was a NGO in Kenya which serves about 30,000 small micro entrepreneurs in Kenya. It was originally supported by CGAP, which is the World Bank's consortium to support microfinance institutions, to build it up to become commercially viable. Then, IFC invested in its and it has converted it into a bank. As a bank, K-Rep is going to be able to serve 13 times more clients; 13 times more small businesses will be able to flourish in Kenya, again marrying commercial viability with serving the poorest. And that has become an increasingly important dimension of our operational work.

QUESTION: I am Diana Gregg with BNA [ph.].

The amounts that you mention, about 46 percent of projects in the financial sector and 23 percent going for infrastructure, do you expect that pretty much to be the case this fiscal year as well or would that change in any way? And also, could we have a definition of frontier countries? I would like that.

MR. WOICKE: Well, let me try to answer the last question first. What is the definition of frontier countries? First of all, I don't want to restrict it just to frontier countries. We also talk about frontier regions and frontier sectors. And all three are characterized by I would say two things.

Number one is that you see very little private investment in these countries, in these sectors and in these regions. And the reason why you don't see private sector investment in these countries, regions or sectors is that either the environment, the legislation, government attitudes are not very positive towards the private sector. And we see our role in basically trying to prove that private sector investment, despite all of this, can work. And that is why we call ourselves to be a catalyst for the private sector.

But we are not happy and content by just proving that a project on a private sector basis can work in these countries or regions. What usually happens is that as we prove that the project works is that we then convince the government to introduce the right legislation and the right laws.

To give you one example, and you might think that this is not necessarily a frontier country but certainly in that country it was a frontier sector, Korea banks were suffering badly from illiquidity. No loan securitization was possible in Korea. The IFC did the first one. But we also worked very closely with the government to introduce the right laws which makes it possible for loan securitization.

And we have done similar things on secondary mortgage companies in Argentina and in South Africa. So the definition of a frontier country is really that you see yet very little private investment.

MR. JABRE: On the first question that you had, the numbers of 46 percent and 23 percent, 46 percent of our approvals last fiscal year, which are approvals of new investments, were in financial services, and 23 percent in infrastructure. This compares to a share of 29 percent of our portfolio which consists of investments in the financial sector and about 17 percent in the form of investments in the infrastructure sector. And the reason for this difference is that we have been building over the past few years our portfolio particularly in important strategic areas, the financial sector and infrastructure, and their share in the portfolio is growing vis-a-vis the rest of the areas.

The second figure is a percentage of financial services and infrastructure investments as a percentage of our total portfolio.

Let me give you an example and step back. Financial sector: 46 percent of new approvals, the approvals that were made for the past fiscal year, the corresponding percentage is 29 percent of disbursed portfolio. This is the disbursed portfolio all what is outstanding in IFC, the investments that we made last year and the years before and they are still outstanding on our portfolio.

For infrastructure, the percentage of investments in this area that we approved last year was 23 percent and the percentage of our portfolio which is invested in infrastructure is 23 percent. I can refer you to the data a little bit later if you wish.

QUESTION: Melvin Musvick [ph.], Emerging Markets.

Two questions. One is you sold the database to S&P last year, the Emerging Markets Data Base, and you were, I understood, working on other indices, for bond indices at one stage. And I wonder are you out of that game altogether of these indices or is there still work going on there and can you tell me about it?

And the second and completely unrelated point, you mentioned the investments in the private health and education sectors. And I wonder whether you could elaborate a little bit there and what are the plans and where are you going down on that road?

MR. JABRE: I think the sale of Emerging Markets Data Base clearly indicates that when the private sector is involved and can do the job, we should let the private sector do it. I think there are other areas where IFC can innovate, and we are considering a number of them. And those new areas are not going to be necessarily new indices.

But again, I mean, we are not in the business of competing with the private sector. If the private sector can do the job, that is great. There are bond indices right now which are being offered by the market and, unless we can add some particular value somewhere, I don't think we will be getting into this business.

MR. WOICKE: Let me comment on what is becoming one of my favorite subjects, private education, private health care. It is a subject which is not non-controversial. And let me present you the controversy upfront.

There is a view which says a public institution like the IFC should not be involved in creating education institutions or health care for people who only can afford it in developing countries.

I thoroughly disagree with that or we disagree with that, I should say, because management supports me on this view. Let me elaborate on this two minutes. If you look at the developing countries today, I would say that most of them, the real frontier countries are characterized by a very small wealthy group, who send their children in most of the case abroad for education. The problem is that these children never come back and work in their countries because they find it easier to work in Europe or in North America.

Public education, which is heavily supported by the World Bank, in many countries, as we know, still needs dramatic improvements to say the least. We think we should create the opportunity for people who have the means and these means by far don't have to be very big, who are willing to support their children locally, and that is what we are doing.

We have supported a number of private schools in Africa, which are very cheap, where parents are lining up to sign up their children. And when we talk so much about capacity building in the developing countries, to have good local institutions which create the opportunity for children to go to and we always make sure that there will be scholarships for very poor people, otherwise we wouldn't do it, but also emphasize these schools are not 100 percent scholarship, that these institutions add tremendous value.

A lot of the innovation today in education is happening in the private sector. And we think that the private sector in education can be a good complement and also a challenge for the public schools. Interestingly enough, there is no controversy in the developing countries about this. The developing countries want us to invest heavily to education and in health care.

QUESTION: [Inaudible.]

MR. WOICKE: While that's difficult to say, as I said, right now it's about three percent, but it is increasing. It depends also very much on the policy of the country. You take a country like India which is, for instance, debating right now whether private education should be allowed in the primary or secondary schools or whether this should be completely a public domain and whether the government should have basically free higher education completely to the private sector.

So we would invest in a country like that probably in higher education. We have invested in Latin America in a number of private universities, but we also are looking, as I said, in Africa at primary schools. It depends how the demand will increase.

We also, needless to say, need to have more strategic discussions with our board about this because, as I said, it's not quite non-controversial with the board.

The most exciting thing for me is actually to invest in e-education. There are today fabulous, fabulous software packages of interactive learning being developed in a number of countries which particularly benefit those countries who have a lack of quantity and quality of teachers, where interactive learning enhances the learning process dramatically, and we have, in fact, made the first few investments in that because we think our developing countries should be entitled particularly to this new area of learning.

QUESTION: You haven't said anything about health.

MR. WOICKE: Health is the same issue. We have the question comes up whether you invest, for instance, in private hospitals? We give you again one example. We have invested in the tertiary hospital in Lagos in Nigeria. It is the only hospital which provides tertiary health care in Lagos.

QUESTION: Tertiary?

MR. WOICKE: Well, top, where you do specialized, specialized operations, et cetera, et cetera. And we are investing in health care programs together with companies in developing countries where health service is provided to employees of companies which simply wasn't there before.

QUESTION: Hi. [?] from the Economist. You mentioned that you tripled your investments in sub-Saharan Africa. What proportion of your investments are now in sub-Saharan Africa? And given your desire to be more pro-poor or on this greater emphasis on making globalization work for the poor, do you see the frontier countries being a larger part of your portfolio, and if so, how do you square that tradeoff between being more pro-poor and yet maintaining your commercial viability?

MR. WOICKE: Well, first of all, our total investment in sub-Sahara Africa is now ten percent of the total portfolio, and I think it's fair to say that we would love to do more, but the opportunities are still not there. We are shifting the attitude of the IFC a little bit here because, let's face it, in the past we were basically approached by sponsors who wanted to invest in developing countries and then we decided whether the project was good or not good, and we went ahead.

I feel very strongly that in some of the real frontier countries, we have to become more proactive. There are opportunities. We know now a lot of investors. We have tremendous experience around the globe on investments and I think what we want to do is now to talk to some investors and say why don't you go to this country; here is an opportunity. We want to be a little bit more proactive in this area.

The most important thing is for us to prove, as I said before, that these investments can be profitable, and in that respect your last question, you know, how do we make sure that we keep profitability, going to the frontier countries does not mean that we're not making profitable investments.

I would argue that the investments which we have made in the frontier countries are as profitable as in the mid-income countries. Where the business per se isn't quite as profitable yet is because we still have to provide a lot of technical assistance along the investments, and that, of course, cuts directly into the income statement of the IFC, but it's not because the investments are not good, but it's really the amount of technical assistance which we have to bring along the investments.

QUESTION: [Interpreted from Czech.] I represent the Slavic Press Agency, and I'd like to know about the projects which are focused on the candidate countries for the membership in the EU, namely the Slovak Republic, and what is the volume of investments in these countries?

MR. WOICKE: Well, I think it's the same what I said about the Czech Republic. Our ultimate aim is always that countries graduate away from us. We don't agree with Mr. Meltzer who wants to abolish the IFC immediately because he thinks that the IFC is not needed anymore, but the ultimate aim of the IFC is that we won't have a job at some time. And countries which have or which aspire to join the European Union, we clearly have to move out because as they get closer to moving towards the European Union, per se, they will have access to capital markets. They have access to financial markets and we won't be needed anymore.

As I said at the beginning, we started out being very heavy in Poland, in Hungary, in the Czech Republic, and we're not making investments in these countries anymore. We're working on some of the investments which we have, but over time we are moving out of these countries.

QUESTION: Simon Joko [ph.], [?] Daily on the African Economy Magazine. We were told recently that the IFC has invested substantially in the Nigeria Airways. How true is this and what is the extent of your commitment?

MR. WOICKE: We have, in fact, not invested in Nigerian Airways money, but we have invested a lot of talent and time. We are, as you might know, we received the mandate from the Nigerian government to help privatize Nigerian Airways, and we're in the process of talking or presenting our final recommendations to the Nigerian government on that.

QUESTION: Bruce Jacobs, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty. Focusing on CIS and Eastern Europe, to what degree is corruption and cronyism a challenge in the investments that you make? And more specifically investments that appear profitable also may be benefitting the few rather than larger numbers of the poor. To what degree are you focusing on that or is that a challenge?

MR. WOICKE: Well, first of all, corruption where it exists is always a problem for us. I think where we as the IFC can add substantial value is when we get involved in advising on privatizations. I can tell you that the privatizations we have been involved in have been totally transparent and very open. Wherever you look, privatizations where the IFC has been involved in were probably free of corruption, and in companies who need financing, in countries where we have the suspicion that corruption was involved, we try to stay away. It's as easy as that.

We talk with governments about corruptive practices. We get very often involved. That is our role in discussions, why foreign direct investment is not happening, why private investment in the countries is not happening, and we are very clear to governments that we point out where we see corruptive practices. We explain why foreign direct investment isn't happening or direct investment by the private sector is not happening. It's a discussion.

Could we say absolutely that any of the projects which we have financed, corruptive practices have not been involved? Absolutely not. But I can assure you that we make every effort, you know, to make investments, such investments where corruptive practices haven't been practiced.

Now, on your second question, you know, it's interesting. We have a internal group which looks in retrospect at all our projects, and that group is reporting directly to the board.

And they came out with a report recently, and I can tell you that they looked at every project from a profitability and developmental perspective. That report said that those projects which had the highest profitability for the IFC also had the biggest developmental impact on the country, which representing private sector doesn't totally surprise me.

Those projects which turned out to be losses or unprofitable had bad developmental impact. So there is a relation between profitability and developmental impact.

Now, I would admit that in terms of privatizations, what very often happens is that people are being set free and get unemployed because we have to be realistic. Heavily state subsidized companies who lose tons of money, when they get privatized and turn into profits, very often they work with 20 or 30 percent of their previous workforce.

And I think that is a serious issue in developing countries because they are very ill-prepared for the new job creation. That is where Mr. Rosen comes in. That is why we are now concentrating so heavily on these small and medium-sized companies because the job creation also in Northern Europe and in the United States today is almost exclusively in small companies, and we find that the developing countries, the creation of SMEs is difficult for three reasons.

Number one, poor people, entrepreneurs have great ideas, but they don't know how to develop business plans. They need consulting. They hardly ever have access to capital markets or medium-term credit.

And thirdly, despite what countries tell you, that they want to develop a SME sector, the environment usually is very bad. It takes years to get a license. It takes a lot of money to pay to get a license and we want to concentrate very much on this SME sector in the future because that's where we think the jobs will be created.

MS. SHAFIK: I just want to on the corruption question, clearly in this part of the world, it's a huge issue. The business surveys that we've done--we've been doing a series of surveys interviewing businessmen around the world, and for the Former Soviet Union and the transition economies, the issue of corruption is top of their list in terms of the constraints to business and to investment. So clearly it's a huge issue.

Now, the IFC can play a key role in terms of trying to ensure that the individual transactions that they're involved in are clean and really trying to set an example and model good corporate citizenship, but in addition to that, the World Bank is, of course, very active in terms of trying to solve the systemic problem.

Now we have about 600 anti-corruption programs going on in 95 countries around the world and what we've realized is that to tackle the problem, as you know, corruption is endemic and it's multi-faceted, so you have to get at it from different directions. So it includes things--our efforts include things like trying to resolve procurement issues and clean up public procurement where a lot of corruption often occurs.

It involves civil service reforms to make sure that civil servants are paid properly so they're not tempted to be corrupt. It involves training of judges and making sure that the courts are clean. And it involves other things like, for example, training investigative journalists so that there are counterbalancing forces in the society to try and root out and identify corruption and reveal it when it's found. So we're operating on all those fronts.

QUESTION: Are there any countries in the CIS or Eastern Europe that you're not involved with because of corruption?

MS. SHAFIK: That we're not involved in terms of not active in?

QUESTION: Yes. Or that you're not investing in because of the corruption?

MS. SHAFIK: Not investing in?

MR. WOICKE: No, I think--

MS. SHAFIK: No.

MR. WOICKE: I think we are involved in nearly all the countries. Keep in mind that we are financing the private sector, and the private sector very often is suffering from the corruption and therefore we think we should not leave alone the private sector. As long as we make sure that the private sector is free of corruption, I think it's worthwhile to support the private sector.

And it also gives us the opportunity to have healthy discussions with the governments because, as I said, you know, again and again, I'm being asked by many governments why isn't there any more investment, private investment in our countries? At least it gives me then the opportunity to point out what needs to change before you get the private investment.

If we wouldn't have these investments in the private sector, the discussion would be much, much more difficult for us.

MR. CONSTANTINE: Okay. If there are no further questions, thanks for coming.

MR. WOICKE: Thank you very much.

MR. CONSTANTINE: Please remember that Mr. Harold Rosen will be talking immediately after this about a more focused discussion on small and medium business activities.

[Whereupon, at 11:57 a.m., the press conference was concluded.]