World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick: Roundtable with Journalists, July 25, 2007, Washington, DC

Robert Zoellick: Well, thanks for coming. I’ll just give you a real brief overview of the trip, and I then know you want to get into your questions. I’m headed off Monday evening to go to Australia for the APEC meeting -- I mean, the Meeting of the APEC Finance Ministers and then I’ll have other discussions with some of the Australian leaders; then I go on to Cambodia, then I go on to Vietnam and, then I go on to Japan and I return. This is a visit that in a sense complements the first one that I took during the nomination process when I went to Africa, Europe, Latin America, and gives me an opportunity to go to one of the more dynamic places in the world and get a few different perspectives. The APEC session enables me to have a chance to meet Finance Ministers from across the Asia Pacific region, and so that will help me in terms of getting perspectives on some of the economic issues, development topics, but also, Treasurer Costello has offered to sort of allow me to speak in one of the sessions about some of the thoughts for the Bank… And then Australia, as some of you may know, has proposed to try to double its development assistance by 2015 to about four billion dollars Australian, so I am interested in talking with them about their priorities. Cambodia and Vietnam are countries that are development partners in very different stages of development challenges.

Japan is the Bank’s second largest shareholder and one of the biggest players in the International Development field. It's the next chair of the G8 Summit, so it’ll give me a chance to consult early about some of the thinking there. This also is helpful for me in that, it allows me to meet some of the World Bank staff in the field working on some of these projects. I have gotten to meet some of the Country Directors here before they’ve gone out, but this allows me to see them in the field. And in general, the trip has a mix of  --sort of-- government businesses, NGOs, and efforts in the projects. A little bit more particularly, I think one of the themes in the APEC context is it is sort of, ten years now after the financial crisis, and so, a lot of the discussion is what's been achieved, where are the sort of question marks in the system, whether it be in terms of developing capital markets and breadth of the investor base and instruments, strengthening investment climate.

They also have Climate Change on the agenda, and so, another element that will run through the APEC context is the south-south relationships as well as the developed and developing. One other point on the Australia stop, our office there does work with some of the small Pacific Island states and they pose some particular development challenges and that’s something that I am interested in discussing with the ASEAN people as well as that of the World Bank staff, and getting some insights on developments in Timor Leste and also Papua New Guinea.

Cambodia, just to give you a little flavor of this, this one has a particular poignancy for me; I was with Secretary Baker, when we were working out the Paris peace arrangements in 1991. So, this is now the opportunity to see what developed since then, and I also worked with Cambodia on its WTO session, but I never visited there. It's a country that has gone through obviously, terrible tragedy, and that takes a toll on development, because one of the challenges here is that even though you have got some pretty good growth, the capacity in the country is very thin, it has to be built up, and so part of the challenge is taking the growth and sort of broadening it. So, some of you may know, Cambodia is still very dependent on apparel exports. There was a big concern at the time of the Multifibre Agreement deal, the old textile quotas ended, that they would lose all that business. They have been able to stay in the market, but clearly, there is some interest in trying to broaden their overall economic possibilities. Similarly, things like securing land rights for the poor are going to be very important, given the sort of rural nature of the county and so I am going to go [to] a land titling project out in the countryside.  Part of the capacity building is the public financial management, and we’ve had governance problems there. We worked out arrangements where we got repaid for some things, you know, with some independent procurement agents. And Cambodia, like Vietnam, is another interesting case of where the World Bank can only work actively in partnership with others, so there is a lot of aid coordination role that we play, so I will be seeing some of the other aid partners there.

Vietnam is at a different stage, where poverty has come down from about 70% to 20%, which is pretty striking, and they have enjoyed growth of about over 7% a year for over a decade, but they are now starting to deal with the second stage of reforms, and some of this is expanding it. So, I am going to go out to one of the mountainous regions and try to see again - one of the rural areas. We have got some projects that are dealing with basic infrastructure: some roads, some irrigation, some schools and health projects and other things. 

For Vietnam to achieve its own goals of trying to become a middle income country by - I think 2010 is it’s goal, - it’s going to have to sort of expand areas like the banking sector, some of the good governance environment, social protection, some of the legal institutions.  So, I am meeting with a business forum there, as well as, I’m going to see an NGO group that deals with some handicapped children.

And in the case of Japan, obviously, this is a country that’s a big player in the international development scene. The numbers have come down a little bit over the past years, but it is still very significant given the overall size of the Japanese economy. So, I am interested in trying to get the sense of the priorities that Japan sees in the development area, and thank  them for their role as the Bank’s second-largest shareholder, and then start to strategize, I hope, about the G-8 summit, and a summit that Japan will be hosting next year dealing with African development. So, over to you.

Journalist: Okay, on Cambodia -- not to denigrate the importance of the Khmer Rouge period, but it seems to me that the biggest hindrance to economic development in Cambodia - or bigger than the Khmer Rouge period, would be the quite rampant both political and economic corruption there. How much of your time there is going to be talking about that?

Robert Zoellick: Well, it is an important element, and again, I don’t know how much you know about some of the history of this, and I have just learned it myself.  The Bank had some problems with that which led to sort of, terminating some projects. It’s now been worked through with the government - as I mentioned, some repayments and some other steps that are dealing with trying to strengthen the public financing sector, but also some independent procurement agents. But also, one of my goals will be to talk to high level officials to emphasize the importance of that, but where I think this does go to the capacity, you know, that country really was shattered, and so, you’ve got people who are sort of, in a sense, building from the bottom up in terms of some of the capabilities of the institutions. And so, I think we need to try to emphasize the importance of governance and clean government. At the same time, we need to help them to be able to achieve them. And that’s some of what the Bank has been doing, and I will be there to reinforce.

Journalist: Would you be bringing specific proposals or anything?

Robert Zoellick:   I think the way, and this again you are catching me before I read all the stuff over the weekend -- because I didn’t think you’d want to hold this on Sunday (laughter) was that I think a lot of that has been worked through; that’s why I think the key point now is to try to hold people to some of the understandings and some of the sort of follow-up arrangements that have been structured. And that always needs continual reinforcement. So, I think I’ve got a meeting with Hun Sen too, to try to emphasize that point.    

Journalist: Can I just follow up on that, in Vietnam as well. How much of a sense, at least in terms of the appropriation so far, do you think there is a residue of this governance and corruption set of issues out there in the field. Is that something you are going to be -- I mean that’s been a very controversial part of Bank policy over the last couple of years. What are you prepared to try and investigate there, given that funds were suspended and now -- and a new process under way to make that smoother?

Robert Zoellick: Yeah, I think it’s unfortunate it’s become such a controversial item, in that, if you look at most of the work in the development field, having sound institutions and having good governance is a core element -- along with sort of basic property rights and rule of law -- to any successful development effort. And so, what I have found in talking with developing countries is that most of them, at least assert they want to strengthen these things, but the question is how can you work with them to strengthen them and how do you encourage those that are on the reform side versus those that - in any country - that want to take advantage of a public trust. And each circumstance is different; they have different backgrounds in terms of whether they are bureaucracy, or in the case of Cambodia, with having just wiped out much of an educated generation than you would in a Vietnam context.

So I think it’s trying to sort of create the right incentives, trying to emphasize this is an important part of development, but also making clear that we’re not going to accept corruption with the financing of our activities. I really believe, you know and this is I think, I may have mentioned before that there are undoubtedly going to be difficult cases; there will be tension and conflict in some of these cases, but in some ways, it should be pretty straightforward for people that we have to address this issue in a way that doesn’t just seem to be penalizing those that are struggling with development. So what do I mean by that. Well, we’ve got to go after the people who are doing the bribing as well as those that are taking bribes - it means that if we can have some activity on stolen assets - Graeme Wheeler, one of the Managing Directors was down in Haiti yesterday and coincidentally I have been talking with the Swiss about some efforts that they are trying to undertake to in a sense return some of the Duvalier assets, but they need to get a request from the Haitians and so Graeme was talking with the Haitians about it; and the Swiss were even willing to provide technical assistance so as to be able to get the appropriate legal requests so that the Swiss may be able to respond to that, so there is one where depending on the sums involved it’s win-win for every body.  So I think that – and I hope that there are opportunities to emphasize this issue within the larger goals for development.

Journalist: You came out with a strong statement on Doha last Friday on the need for opening trade. And you are going to partners, on different positions in the whole scheme of things, especially farm trade. How much do you want to inject – sort of – trade related energy into this trip?

Zoellick: Well the reason I issued the statement was because this, obviously the round has struggled and there have been strong differences.  But kind of a fellow international institution, in this case the WTO through the chairs of some of its committees, put forward a text that tried to narrow the range, and I can’t step in the shoes of the various national parties and won’t do that, but I do think what I can try to do, and what I emphasized in the statement was first, some of those texts emphasized that there has been substantial progress and there are great gains to be made. Second, where there are particularly strong differences, particularly in some of the agricultural issues and what they call NAMA but the manufactured goods issues, that I think the chairs made reasonable efforts to try and narrow that span. Third, to emphasize to keep the eye on the prize here which is that if one can be able to complete this round, it’s got huge potential benefits for the international economy and all the players in the international economy. Economic growth is a win-win opportunity, it’s not zero sum. Fourth, I wanted to emphasize that in doing this, we have to have a particular concern for the poor and developing countries in the process that also contributes to the agricultural issue. And then fifth, is to suggest that if there is some momentum that can be gained here, if the World Bank as an institution can help support the process, for example in the aid for trade, that we would like to try to do so and you may be interested to hear, or at least I was pleased to hear that I didn’t get any friction for it. n fact I got some calls from developed and developing countries that were encouraging me and us to continue to do that.

Journalist 2: Can I follow up on that? I’m Geoff Elliot from the Australian. There has been some talk of a push for more regional free trade agreements in the event of Doha failure. So, the so called APEC free trade agreement, as well as Susan Schwab made some comments along those lines recently. In the event of Doha, would you support such a move with APEC and do you expect that to be a matter of discussion.

Robert Zoellick: I have long believed these are not exclusionary, whether it’s bilateral, it’s regional or global efforts to support free trade. I could get into the long, [yellow highlighter?] but I won’t bore you with it, but there’s a reason why. I’ll just say that I think APEC free trade would involve a lot of economies that it would be a challenge to get into a free trade agreement. You know, the US is struggling with Korea right now, China Japan, all the other members, So, I would again emphasize - there is a deal on the table here in the WTO, and it’s not my role to do the final negotiation, but rather than start from scratch with APEC, I would emphasize the need to try to get Doha done.

Journalist: With regard to your Japanese trip - you mentioned that you are expecting more contributions or more effort of Japan on African development. So would you elaborate on this specifically – so what kind of effort would be needed for Japan to help the African nations more?

Robert Zoellick: I apologize if you heard me say that I said more effort. What I was saying is that Japan itself was going to be hosting a Summit dealing with African development and will also be the host of the G8 Summit and the past G8 Summit as others have focused heavily on the challenges of development in Africa. So, a part of my purpose is to talk to the Japanese officials and get their sense and their ideas and priorities and challenges - how do we help build support. Every developed country that I know of seems to be under budget pressure and so, there are officials who want to try to expand the development agenda, but they often need the support of making the case.

So, how can we as an institution help work with our Japanese partners to help make the case -  some of this deals with effectiveness, some of this deals with self interest, some of this deals with particular areas of concern. So, what I want to emphasize here is that Japan has been a very big player in the overseas development assistance area, I want to encourage Japan to continue to do so, and that’s partly the government, but also convey the message to the public. As you may know, two of the big Japanese development agencies, JBIC AND JICA are actually merging, and now if they keep the same funding level, they’ll have about $9 billion a year, that’s a big sum of money. So, I would also like to try to see how we can cooperate and coordinate and get a sense of that merged organization, what its objectives are. So, part of my reason to go to Japan so early is - Japan is a big player, I want to thank it, but also continue to encourage it.

Journalist Did I understand you to say, that Japan’s ODA is going down slightly as a percentage of the total. Why do you think that is..?

Robert Zoellick: Budget pressure. I mean Japan has had clearly a very large budget deficit and I’m sure the Diet is trying to figure out how to close the deficit and so probably, international development assistance, like everything else gets cut, at least as a percentage.

Journalist 2: Are you going to meet with the Prime Minister Abe, in Japan?

Robert Zoellick: We are in a process of trying to set up the meetings now, and I don’t know exactly which meetings have been set up.

Journalist2: Just a follow up on the G7 next year, I think the Japanese government hopes the main issue will be environmental. Do you think that there is anything that World Bank can collaborate with?

Robert Zoellick: Yes I hope so; the climate change issue is also going to be part of the APEC discussion.  As you may know, there is a meeting in Bali later this year to try to address climate change. I would like to get a better sense of some of the thinking of the countries about how they would like to approach this issue, and I will start to bring some thoughts from our side to see how we might be able to build on it. So for example, you might have seen there were a few wire stories coming out of Australia actually this week about a Forest Carbon Fund that the World Bank has helped put together and Australia was one of the early contributors. We are working again with some financing for a more general sort of carbon reduction fund. This is a region which is one of the locomotives of growth. So, I would like to get their perspective on how we can try to deal with some of the carbon and energy efficiency issues while continuing to support the dynamism. There are other things, for example in terms of technology transfer. China is planning to build I think about 200 coal-fired electricity generating plants. Obviously, it’s going to make a big difference for the future, the technology that is used in those plants. The World Bank has been involved with some of the early carbon trading systems which have a long way to go to be developed, but they could be part of the solution.

In general, I think there are some win-win possibilities here where – take the deforestation issue - with the proper forest policies, you also prevent some of the cutting that could lead to erosion and break-down of rural communities, but at the same time that you are going to have appropriate forest policies. You have to sort of fit it into your overall development strategy. So, we’ve come with a number of ideas and some of the recognition that perhaps we can help with the financing of this, but to connect your question with the point about Africa, which one of your colleagues asked, I think the developed world is going to have to approach this with a strong sensitivity, because when I was in Africa and in Latin America, there was a strong message that while developing countries want to be supportive of the climate change issue, they don’t want it to be at the expense of some of their core development needs. And this brings us right back to the effort for funding of IDA - the International Development Association - which we’re in the process of trying to work with countries and develop the arguments and sort of help look towards a conclusion late this year or early next year of the funding commitments over the next three years.

So, I don’t think these need or should be in conflict with one another, but it would be helpful, for example for Japan if it wants to stress the climate change agenda, to also emphasize its seriousness in the African development agenda, and that’s why I am pleased that it’s hosting these two related summits, and we can see how we can help.

Journalist: And so is your point that they should – the developing countries or countries like Japan should - I guess is your worry that they are going to look at climate change at the expense of financing for IDA or…

Robert Zoellick: I am saying that in some developing countries, in Africa and Latin America, there is that concern. When I talked with developed countries, for example when I went to Berlin after the summit and reported this, I was told by the Chancellery and the Foreign and Finance Ministries, that wasn’t Germany’s intention, as they wanted to continue the strong support for African development. But part of my message to all developed countries is the work that we do on IDA together will be part of delivering on that promise because we try to target 50% or more of IDA to African countries.

Journalist: Does the World Bank have a position on new carbon trading schemes and whether we need an overall cap on carbon emissions?

Robert Zoellick: I don’t know whether the World Bank has a position. The carbon trading systems tend to rely on having some form of a cap, because otherwise you have no need to be able to trade. So, at least my understanding is that we have tried to apply our knowledge in innovative markets to make it work in drawing some of the experience, for example in Europe where this has occurred, as part of the UN system and try to see how we can expand it.  But at the same time one is expanding it, and you guys read this in your own newspapers, there’s always questions about how you are going to treat some of the forestation issues, how you make sure that its net changes as opposed to gross aspects and then there’s another area where I hope we can apply some of our technical expertise. But more generally, I’ll just say this, my own perspective on this is that particularly in bringing in the developing countries, you are going to need to have an incentive system, you’re going to need to do things that are in their self-interest.

I don’t think they are just going to subject themselves to caps on their own. And that goes to some of the points that we were discussing here. I think there are a lot of win-win possibilities related to energy efficiency and related to some of the technology opportunities. It’s just the subject we have talked about on other occasions, China is starting to pay a lot more attention to the environmental costs of its growth and some of this relates to its use of energy. So, if we can capture some of that interest and be supportive of more energy efficient policies in a way that helps them save money and have a cleaner environment, I think that’s going to be the most effective way to work with some of the developing countries. In other cases like Brazil, I talked with President Lula about their biofuels, so there’s another opportunity.

Journalist: So, there’s been this debate about whether the world should have sort of aspirational targets or firm caps so that we lower carbon emissions around the world by 50% or 60% by 2050.

Robert Zoellick: Yeah, I can’t speak for the national governments, they have to make those decisions. I’ve shared with people my experience going back to the ’92 Rio Convention where I played an active role in getting the US to sign on board, that ’92 Convention had actions plans as well as goals. I think there’s something to be said for that, because sometimes people set goals and they don’t have follow-up actions. I think the need is -- in an issue as where the ongoing insights and knowledge, whether dealing with the effects of climate change or the adaptations are as rapidly evolving as this field, I think you want to have a lot of [inaudible 26:55] loops so you want to see and I think for developing countries as I said, and think its less likely that developing countries will accept caps, but you might be able to get them to commit to actions that are of an incentive nature. Then, there’s obviously the debate in developed countries about whether they should be accepting caps which is the whole story of Kyoto and also discussed in US Congress these days.

Audience: Mr. President, you mentioned many times about China. So, what do you think of, could you elaborate a little bit about China’s development and the environmental protection in the last 10 years and about the relations between the World Bank and China?

Journalist: I think China has been one of the tremendous success stories in development and growth. If you look at a lot of the reduction in poverty in the world, a big chunk of it has come from China’s growth and development. At the same time, China has recognized, through the focus on a harmonious society and scientific development, that it needs to try to address a broader aspect than just the pure economic growth statistics. I am pleased that the World Bank has been a partner with China and is starting to look at some of these issues, including, for example in the environmental area and in trying to assess the cost of the environmental growth, or the environmental costs. So then try to use that as a basis for trying to address some of those issues. More generally in the partnership, I would like it to deepen not so much because China’s need of the financial resources of the Bank, but from my discussion with Chinese officials, there’s an interest in the experience, the expertise, and frankly the neutrality that I think that the World Bank can bring to issues, whether it be developing securities market regulation, whether it be health care system or one that I just learned about that we are just starting the consideration of a project in dealing with regulation of food safety. It’s a good example of some win-win possibilities.

The last point I’ll make is that I do believe for China, Brazil, for India, there will also be a challenge for them to become stakeholders in the international system and this means their role with other developing countries - the south-south aspect. I think that China is open and willing to discuss these ideas, these deal with everything from transparency policies for extractive industries to other topics, to its role in Africa. However I think that we will become better partners if we are also working on China’s development. So, I see a reinforcement in working with China on its issues at home, to being a good partner with working with China on issues around the world.

Journalist: If I could follow that point - in Cambodia, you are probably going to find that there are World Bank projects, but also a large amount of Chinese investment in extractive industries, timber, all sorts of things. Will you be sort of looking to see how they might be acting as a stakeholder there, or have those kind of discussions. There is often voice or concern that China’s no-strings-attached donation, largesse, can often sort of, foul the pitch for more traditional donors.

Robert Zoellick: Well, first, one of the meetings that I think I’ve got scheduled is, with a range of either ambassadors or donors in Cambodia, because I mentioned I think the annual aid [is], somewhere between six or seven hundred million dollars to Cambodia. The World Bank actually has a rather modest share of that, but we play a key role in terms of training and sort of coordinating it. So, in that context, I’ll also be interested in learning about the environment for doing business and the transparency, the governance and corruption issues as we go forward, and getting a sense of the role that foreign investors play. So, I don’t start out with a presumption -- I don’t know all the details, and the one’s that you at least hinted or suggested at, but part of the benefit of going on these trips is to listen and learn, and you pick things up, and then you apply them elsewhere.

Journalist: In your meetings with Hun Sen and with the leaders in Vietnam, do you raise these human rights issues that the US and others have and how does that come in?

Robert Zoellick: (Voice Overlap) be Cambodia, but then even Vietnam is obviously as well. Well, I want to try to stress the overall rule of law, the governance, the openness of the societies and how it can contribute to sort of, development and opportunity. So that will be the focus of my activity, and look, as I have said, so you know, to our staff in general, we are a development institution, we want to create opportunity and hope but also, we have to have our eyes open about the basic human rights conditions in the countries in which we operate as well. But our focus is to try to create better human conditions, and that’s one of the reasons why, on the development side alone -- take the project that I am going to be going up to in Vietnam - we have had tremendous growth, but you’ve got to get out of the cities and see what's happening in some of the rural areas, because there is still grinding poverty in some of these areas.

So, part of the challenge is, at the same time you are supporting countries, [is] sort of moving to the next stage of their own development and growth. Then they are also attentive about segments in their society, that they might leave behind.

Journalist: Any meetings with the Filipino leaders, there was a letter recently about the increased violence with the MILF…

Robert Zoellick: I haven’t - I am going to meet a series of finance ministers on the side, but I don’t know whether I am going to be meeting with the Filipino finance minister, I just don’t know. But I’ll probably, I’m sure that I will be running into the minister in one of the sessions.

Journalist: So it has been a few weeks since you became President. How do you feel?

Robert Zoellick: Seems longer. (Laughter).

Journalist: How do you feel –

Robert Zoellick: Tired (Laughter).

Journalist: - I mean, what is your grasp of the World Bank? Has it changed?

Robert Zoellick: I haven’t had a lot of time to reflect -- I’ve been trying to just -- sorry, you have heard this before, so I will try to be brief. I am trying to spend a lot of time sort of, reaching out, talking to people. Yesterday, I was at lunch with the Senior Women’s Group and talking about the challenges of sort of, increasing the female diversity at the senior levels in the workforce - I have stopped by the legal office. At the same time, I have Board meetings quite frequently dealing with the challenges of different views across the board on some of these issues. I am trying to meet the staff as we are working through particular issues, whether our middle-income strategy or some of the issues relating to the public goods agenda. So, and then I am dealing with the inevitable problems that are frustrating, but you just - they come up everyday, you just have to do them.

I guess I would say this as a point. I have been exceptionally pleased by the response to my efforts to get people to come together and focus on an issue. People have been bending over backwards to be helpful. They have been trying their best. When I ask for one page, they keep it to one page, although many add tabs. (Laughter) And I think people are enthusiastic about trying to get back to work on some of these challenges. And the talent pool here is enormous. There are just a lot of ideas that people have wanted to pursue, that for a whole host of reasons, we just haven’t been able to get some of the traction, so I am trying to kind of, unleash those and trying to move some of them forward, whether it be in different financing methods, how we integrate with IFC -- I spent a day over there. At the same time I am trying to keep the network open - I visited members of Congress, I visited members of the European Parliament, I am talking to ministers, I had the Lesotho Prime Minister here, who is a friend, and so did I mention about the Haiti -- yeah, I mean the Swiss, certainly -- that was kind of a nice one because this was a topic that we were working on with them, with the stolen assets, and yet I could say – “Hmm I’ve got one of my deputies in Haiti, maybe we can make sure we connect on this point” – and that actually worked.

So, there is a good -- I think there is a good dynamism, but there is a tremendous amount to do. And look, there is a fair amount of things that just backed up over past months, okay, separate from the other challenges. You may be shocked to know that there are many evaluatory bodies of the World Bank - I am just trying to keep count of them all. So, I met with one this morning, because they have a need to change some of their commissions, so, there is an appointments process for that and so, there is a lot of institutional work that needs to be done. So, maybe if I get on a flight to Asia, I’ll get some sleep.

Journalist: How are you doing on the car front? Last time weren’t you having trouble – I can’t remember - either picking a car or getting into the car you wanted, or…?

Robert Zoellick: I want to get a hybrid car. I asked people here to identify some, and they promised they would get back to me with some choices and I can’t remember if it was you or someone else who was mentioning about some of them being small, and so I haven’t seen what’s going on yet. 

Carl Hanlon: I think we have time for a couple of more questions.

Journalist: Our Treasurer Peter Costello welcomed your appointment; prior to your appointment, he was arguing for a more multilateral approach to the selection of the World Bank President. What would your view on that be, if they asked you?

Robert Zoellick: Look, as I said from the point that I was nominated, my job is to do the best job that I can, and that’s what I’ve been trying to do and that’s what I -- I forget, I haven’t had the chance to talk on the phone about -- as you may known I’ve known Peter Costello for a long time. So, what I’m focusing on is trying to move the World Bank forward, and others can exercise their policy (inaudible) as countries - I’m not a country.

Journalist: Is there any particular reason why you are not going to China on your first big Asia trip?

Robert Zoellick: I was wondering if somebody was going to ask that. I wanted to go to China, but it turns out that after the APEC meeting, I will be moving into that period where the Chinese have their retreat – August retreat. So they very kindly said, “Look, if you can come before the end of July, we’d be pleased to have you, but we have got this retreat period.” I just couldn’t leave during this period to get there. So we talked about me trying to come back later in the year. So no signal - just that I was conflicting with their retreat period. And actually, just so you know, they actually did come back and make that particular effort to say, “Look, if you can come earlier, we’d be delighted to have you,” but I just couldn’t get away.

Carl Hanlon: Okay, and thank you very much.