Press Briefings
Foreign Secretary’s Press Conference at L’Aquila
08/07/2009
Foreign Secretary (FS)- Sorry to keep you waiting but it went on much longer than expected. So I thought to try and make up we will get SEPM. You get two for the price of one. Thought we would run through the events of the day briefly and then I thought maybe Shyam Saran could tell you about the discussions on climate change that's become a big issue.
As you know, Prime Minister met with UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown at noon today. They had an extended session alone, just two of them and then they met with the delegations during which they discussed climate change. Mr Shyam Saran will tell you more in detail about that. Prime Minister also told him about our National Action Plan. He even gave him a copy. So the discussion went about trade, and Doha round and the need to prevent protectionism, and there was a discussion on the state of the world economy. Prime Minister mentioned to him the fact that whatever the green shoots of recovery there might be, are still very fragile, that most of the major indicators are still negative, when you look at the world economy as a whole.
They discussed the need to implement the decisions that were taken in the London G 20 Summit in April, where you know there was an agreement, not only on the large stimulus package for the world economy but also on increasing the financing available to international financial institution and the need to restructure them as well. Much of this still needs to be implemented. It needs to be realized in practice. There was some discussion also on the imbalances in the structure of the world economy, which many people think is one of the contributing reasons for the world economic crisis that we face today and on how surveillance regulation mechanisms would need to be improved to deal with this.
Both of them expressed satisfaction with the continuous and steady development of bilateral relations, which as you know are excellent. Our President will be visiting UK later this year, and we have a tradition of annual summits and high-level meetings. The afternoon and evening were really spent in the G5 meeting, the G8 have been meeting separately. You would have got the outcome documents. You'd have received the G5 declaration, I presume you have copies of that. There is the general declaration by G5, but there is also a declaration on trade matters. You got both of them, good. The leaders met first from 5 o'clock onwards, and had a fairly detailed and free-flowing discussion on several issues. I'll just go through the agenda with you.
To begin with, they discussed....their co-ordinated their position for the meetings tomorrow with the G8 and discussed, which issues they need to concentrate on and which they need to present. I think as some of the largest developing countries, naturally their attempt was to seek how we can ameliorate the effects of the economic crisis on the developing countries. Prime Minister made the point that the serial crises that we face, whether it is energy security or the food crisis or the liquidity problem have impacted trade credit flows. These are all interlinked, and that actually one needs to find linked solutions for all these problems. He also spoke again of the need for the decisions that had been taken at London by the G20 to be implemented and that the last thing that the developing countries can afford is for the recovery to be delayed or for the world economy to go into a stagflation if the sufficient stimulus is not provided to the global economy. If there isn't a recovery from the present situation, because the developing countries would be the least equipped to cope with the effects of the stagflation and what it might do to them. So, in fact, as PM said that the recovery must be based on an inclusive strategy of growth which takes the poor countries into account. In fact, he also spoke of the need that when devising solutions to the world economic crisis, it is essential to take into consideration, the burden of mass property, and that is something that must be addressed in the process otherwise.
You have seen estimates by the World Bank, by the IMF for the increasing number of peoples who would slip back into poverty, unless the economic crisis is addressed very quickly. Tomorrow during the discussions with the G8, there will be a discussion on the new sources of growth in the world economy. So there was some discussion around the table from where these new sources of growth would come. The feeling was that for country like ours which have a young population the challenge really is to make the poor bankable, in the sense that given their skills and jobs, they can create demand, and consumption that could would help to pull the economy forward and bring growth into economies, and that would be an enormous source of growth.
There was also considerable discussion on the need to reform international, not just financial institution, but also the institutions of international governance. This was a recurrent theme, Prime Minister spoke of it. So did President Lula, so did all the other speakers. So did the Chinese representative. President, Hu Jintao was represented by Mr. Dai Bing Guo and he also spoke of this. It also comes out very clearly in the G5 declaration as a very strong statement about the need to do that. There was some discussion, both over dinner and in the meeting, of looking at the use of alternate currencies. Not so much as reserve currencies. But Brazil's President Lula suggested that we should consider using our own currencies to settle our own trading accounts with each other. So not the earlier idea, which revolved around, the last time of reserve currency- which everyone recognised- the Chinese Foreign Minister spoke at dinner- he also said that, that is a long-term issue of global reserve currency. But there was as President Lula said, he was not proposing a new currency, but he suggested that our expert should look at the idea of settling trading accounts in our own currencies amongst ourselves within the G5. So that's one of the ideas which we looked at.
Then the Mexican President spoke about the green fund that Mexico has proposed to fund climate change, Mr Shyam Saran will talk to you about that, and the G5 agreed that they would look at the proposal in detail. Among them, basically the themes that were covered therefore, were very much the themes we can expect to come up tomorrow. There was an element of coordination of what the G. 5 would say tomorrow. And what they would be pressing for, but there was also an element of what G5 can do amongst ourselves to try and move things forward whether on technology or whether on financing the green fund, but which would also involve money from the developed countries. On each of these....and those were really the two big aspect that were discussed. I now hand you over to Mr. Shyam Saran, who will tell you about the climate change discussions both in the G5 and generally with the G8.
Shri Shyam Saran, SEPM (SEPM) -Thank you Shanker. Let me begin by stressing the fact that climate change is one of the major agenda items of both the G8 summit, as well as for the G5 summit. The importance of the discussion on climate change at this venue lies in the fact that we are only six months away from the Copenhagen Summit of fifteen parties, which is to take a number of informal decisions about the global regime for dealing with the challenge of climate change. The agreement among both the G5 countries and both the G8 and G5 countries has been that a very strong political message needs to go out from the Heads of State, which would give a strong fillip to the ongoing negotiations in the Copenhagen process.
Now let me begin by first stressing what our own perspective concerning these discussions are. We have been repeatedly stressing that, as far as the negotiations are concerned, these negotiations are actually taking place under the UNFCC, that is the process which has now become known as the Copenhagen process. Therefore, whatever we do here, should not pre-empt decisions which rightfully need to be taken by the larger body under the UNFCC process. Therefore, our role here is meeting of the political leaders, whether it is for G5 or for G5 and G8 or in the major economies forum, which is to be held tomorrow, is really to give the right kind of messages to the multilateral negotiations.
Now in that respect, the most important meeting, as far as climate change is concerned, is going to be held tomorrow and that is the energy and climate forum of the major economies, which is going to be held tomorrow afternoon. And this is a grouping of about sixteen or seventeen countries, which includes the G8 plus G5 plus a few additional countries. These additional countries are like Indonesia, Australia, you have South Korea, and of course EU is represented in that forum. For the last several months we had been engaged in coming out with a agreed declaration. Three preparatory meetings have been held. The last meeting was held in Mexico City and I am happy to report that after very very intensive negotiations the major economies Forum has in fact been able to come up with a declaration, which will be released to you tomorrow. But of course, the focus was on what is going to happen tomorrow when the G5 meet the G8 countries and what will be the position the G5 countries will take once they again go to the major economies Forum, what is our perspective on the climate change issue.
Now here, the G5 countries have a fairly co-ordinated position with respect to some of the key issues relating to climate change. One is that the G.5 countries hold the position, that while climate change is a global challenge, and that we all need to work together in order to deal with this challenge, there is an aspect of historical responsibility, which has to be taken into account, and that historical responsibility is for the developed industrialized countries because if climate change is taking place today, it is not taking place because of current emissions, but is as a result of accumulated emissions in the atmosphere which is causing climate change and that accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is really the responsibility of the industrialized countries and therefore, on the principle of polluter pays, the major responsibility of climate change and of contributing to the global efforts to deal with the climate change is with the developed countries.
This translates into a very specific demand by the developing countries that there should be very sharp and significant reduction in the emissions of the developed countries. They should lead the G. 5 countries. If you look at the political declaration, we have stated that the developed countries emissions should be reduced by at least forty percent by the year 2020. So a very specific figure has been given, and of course we also say that this should be the basis for more even more ambitious targets which would be set for 2050, of 80-85 percent cuts by 2050. So that's a very major, in fact a very important political message from G5 that there has to be a very sharp reduction in the emissions of the developed countries and that should not the less than 40 percent by 2020.
Then we have another aspect which is very important, and that is the question of adaptation. How do we adapt to climate change? Climate change is already taking place in India, we say that we are already facing the impact of climate change and we are spending maybe 2-2.5 per cent of GDP currently, for adapting to climate change. This is, for example, to deal with extreme climatic events, which will be taking place or certain natural disasters which are taking place because of the change in the climatic patterns. We are having to spend money because agriculture is being impacted by climate. The growing season of crops has become short from what it was before. So there are many demands on the very limited resources of India itself of meeting the challenge of adaptation, and it is also a fact that even if it emissions were to become zero to-day, climate change would continue to take place because of the fact that, as I mentioned earlier, that the impact is due to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in atmosphere and not just the current emissions. So it is going to be a long-term sort of burden on developing countries to meet the challenge of adaptation and therefore we have said that in any climate change regime that we are going to be negotiating, any outcome that we are negotiating must have equal emphasis, if not greater emphasis, on adaptation as it would on mitigation, and there is need for developing countries, particularly to be enabled to deal with the challenge of adaptation.
Then we come to the other pillars, as they are called, of the climate change, and one is the financing and the other is technology, and here again the discussions which took place in the G5, it was very clear that there needs to be- number one, predictable, stable and adequate financial resources, which need to be mobilised to enable a global challenge, a global response, to emerge to the challenge of climate change. And this of course means that even the developing countries have to be enabled, whether in terms of adaptation or whether in terms of mitigation to take various actions beyond what they are already taking on. Unless there is adequate financial resources available, it would not be possible to do so. So the major developing countries have put forward a proposal that at least 0.5 per cent of the developed country GDP, or if possible even one per cent of the GDP, be somewhat the minimum amount of resources which would be required in order to finance the actions which are required for climate change.
And it is also recognized that technology is going to be a key element in dealing with climate change, and in this the developing countries position again is very clear and we say that if climate change is really the extraordinary challenge that everyone says that we are confronting, then, it stands to reason that- number one, whatever existing climate-friendly technologies, which are available to us or which are viable or close to viability, these should be diffused, in as rapid and in as widespread manner as possible. Secondly, you also would have to parallel this with a major programme for capacity building, because even if technology is there, unless there is the capacity to absorb or assimilate it, technology does not mean very much. So, if we have the rapid diffusion we are talking about, which would make an impact in terms of climate change, it also requires that there should be a major programme for capacity building. Thirdly, there is another aspect that success would depend upon how successful we are in being able to generate the kind of transformation and technologies, which are required to enable us to really make a significant shift in our strategy of development, in the package of development, which is currently based essentially on fossil fuels- to a strategy which is essentially based on a renewable sources of energy and clean sources of energy, for example, like nuclear energy. Everyone agrees that the shift has to come about, but the question is how quickly the shift can come about, and the shift can come out more quickly obviously, if technology is available and financial reserves are available, because any transition is a very costly business. So we have also put forward this particular perspective on technology- one, diffusion of existing technology to create the global platform for collaboration, technological collaboration, which would include developed as well as developing countries so we can generate the kind of transformation technologies which are required in order to bring about that strategic shift that I spoke about.
To us this was one very important aspect, and in this context, the Prime Minister informed the heads of States and Governments of the G5 countries that India in association with the United Nations Department for Economic and Social affairs is convening a conference on climate change and technology development and transfer, which is going to be take place in New Delhi on October 22 and 23 this year.
The precise objective of this particular conference is what I mentioned to you, that in a collaborative manner bring about a development diffusion and transfer of climate-friendly technologies on a global basis. This essentially is what we discussed during the meetings.
Shankar made reference to the green fund which has been suggested by the Mexican president. Now the Green Fund is a multilateral fund, which Mexico has suggested. But the contribution to this fund would be on the basis of several criteria. For example, he has spoken about the criteria of historical responsibility. That is what is the total emissions that have gone into the atmosphere since the dawn of the industrial age by a specific country. Secondly, what is the current level of emission of countries? What is the current level of development of a country? What is the overall GDP of the country, or what is the current per capita income of the country? There would also be a certain weightage given to per capita emissions of a country. You could make clear some allowances for least developed countries or countries which are small island developing states, which are very specific examples, but the fund is to be structured in a manner that everyone contributes. That is the Mexican proposal.
Some of the ideas we like, the principle that there should be some kind of an assessed contribution by countries would be very helpful in creating a fund which is stable, creating a fund which is predictable, because it would not be subject to the vagaries of a budget decisions or market economy. But there is also the aspect of who should contribute. Of course, as you know in the UNFCC the principle is that the financial transfers is really the responsibility of the developed countries. So this is something which needs to be discussed further and during the meeting we agreed that the Mexican side will put forward for consideration a much more detailed proposal, which we are ready to look at, but keeping in mind the principles of the UNFCC.
Last just to mention to you that tomorrow as I said, the major economies forum will be meeting and would be coming up with a declaration and as far as we're concerned that declaration is positive, is forward-looking, but very important that it also has retained some of the principles which are very important to us. For example, while we all agree that all of us share a common responsibility in moving to a much more sustainable path….. enhanced sustainability of economic development. But the overriding priority of economic and social development, of poverty reduction, of developing country must be recognized globally. That is the basis on which we really must construct the new global regime. So, it has been a positive development that we have been able to come together and come up with a declaration which both the major developed as well as the developing countries can agree to, and tomorrow, you can have a look at the declaration. Thank you.
Question: Sir, this is about Doha Round talks. Has India made any commitment to the G-8 countries that there will be a timeline for concluding the talks?
Foreign Secretary: No, because we have not even discussed it with the G-8 yet. So far it has been a discussion within the G-5. In the preparations when we were discussing the Joint Declaration which we will do with the G-8, the G-8 themselves were not willing to put a clear timeline. There were clearly some differences among themselves as to when they expect to be able to do it. General expectation, if you need a broad sort of sense, is that 2010 will be the year when people will try and finalize it. But nobody seemed ready at that stage, in the preparatory stage, to actually put a date on it. We will now find out tomorrow. Tomorrow is when the leaders actually meet and they will have one session in the Major Economies format, in the larger expanded format of about 20 countries. Their first hour they will spend on trade issues. So, we will answer your question really tomorrow finally.
Question: Mr. Menon, in what way, if any, is the G-5 Declaration new and significant?
Foreign Secretary: I think it is new and significant in three respects. One is it is a clear declaration at a time when we now know the shape and size of the global economic crisis. So, it suggests to you what the G-5 think are very important responses to that crisis. Secondly, you will notice it comments on all the major issues, whether it is trade, whether it is the Doha Round, whether it is a separate declaration by the G-5, whether it is climate change, whether it is restructuring of international governance in its various forms. So, for me it is important because it brings it all together, says it at an authoritative level at a time when the world has changed very drastically. If you look at it, compared to the last time the G-5 met at this level at the summit in Japan the entire global outlook was quite different from what you face today. So, this is why for me it is so important.
Question: Considering the statement made by the G-5 leaders today … the Mexican President ……(inaudible)…. and your insistence that the historical …(inaudible)…. Do you see an agreement by developed countries … If you do not see that, tomorrow are there going to be two statements or one statement on the issue?
SEPM: As I mentioned, we already have an agreed statement of the Major Economies Forum which we have already finalized. That particular declaration is going to be issued tomorrow at the end of the Major Economies Forum. So, the basic understanding has already been arrived at. What will happen tomorrow is that the leaders will in a very informal atmosphere be able to exchange a lot of views concerning how to take the process forward particularly in respect to the Copenhagen Process. With regard to whether or not the developed countries recognize historical responsibilities, it is not really a question of whether they recognize it or not because this is part of a consensus treaty. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change has a very clear acknowledgement by the developed countries that they bear a historical responsibility for the accumulated greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Sometimes there is, I think a misunderstanding that these are demands being put by developing countries to the developed countries. That is not the case. What developing countries are really saying is that whatever commitments you have freely undertaken in an international treaty, you should deliver that. So, historical responsibility is not a demand of the developing countries on the developed countries. Rather it is a demand that commitments that you have undertaken in the UNFCC, you should deliver.
Question: Do you see an agreement as far as the G-8 countries are concerned?
SEPM: As you know, we have not come to the end of those negotiations because the negotiations will go on till December this year. So, we are still currently in the stage of really exchanging views, trying to see what we can come up with. There is a recognition that there has to be fairly large financial resources which will be required for transfer to developing countries, if there is to be a successful outcome at Copenhagen. But what the extent of that funding would be, in what manner it would be raised, in what manner it would be deployed, these are issues which are still not resolved.
Question: We have been told that China and India might have agreed to some binding terms in the agreement … tomorrow. Could you shed some light on that? … 2050 target in ………(inaudible)….
SEPM: India and China, or for that matter other developing countries in the Major Economies Forum, have not agreed to any binding targets for themselves. What the developing countries have stated is that they are in any case committed, under the UNFCC, to a path of sustainable development. If you see much of the actions which are already being taken by the developing countries - whether it is India or whether it is China or Brazil - you will see that a considerable amount of effort is going into in fact putting in place sustainable development policies. The question is if you have to do more, how are you going to be able to support that? For that, therefore, we say that developing countries are committed to a deviation from business-as-usual provided that deviation from business-as-usual is supported by adequate finance, technology, and capacity-building. So, that particular position remains the same. There is no difference as far as that position is concerned.
As far as I am aware, there are no individual targets or even group targets for either the developed or the developing countries. As I stated earlier, we insisted that there should be ambitious targets for 2020. That is because unless you have ambitious targets for 2020 how credible would any target be for 2050? But there is no willingness at this point of time by the developed countries to indicate what they are willing to sign on to with respect to 2020.
The other point is the base year. We say the base year should be as it is in the UNFCC and the Kyoto Protocol which is 1990. Some of the developed countries are trying to change that base year which does not seem to be very …(inaudible)… to us.
Question: Sir, Mr. Hu Jintao could not stay for these discussions. Are you disappointed that he, a senior leader, could not stay? What could he have perhaps brought to these discussions that we perhaps missed out on?
Foreign Secretary: This is for him to decide where he goes. But China participated actively in the meetings. Mr. Dai Bingguo was there as their representative. They have been involved in all the preparations and they will be there tomorrow as well. We look forward to continuing to working with China in this process, both within the G-5 and in our discussions with G-8.
Question: Mr. Saran, can you tell us very if that India will ever agree under certain terms and conditions for a certain specific year for carbon emissions deadline? G-8 declaration today also mentioned about this. You were just now saying that it is not there but it is there for the developing countries. So, I just want to understand again. Will India ever agree or not for a specific year deadline.
Special Envoy: India agrees that both for developed as well as for developing countries at some point there has to be a peak and then emissions should come down. We also agree, and everybody agrees in fact, that the peaking will be much earlier for developed countries and they will be much later for developing countries. Where it will peak and how substantially it would go down, as I mentioned, depends upon whether or not the financial, technological and capacity-building support is available. Obviously, if sufficient support is available you can peak earlier and you can go down more significantly. If that support is not available, then the peaking cannot be very early nor can the deviations from the business-as-usual be as sharp as it would otherwise be. So, to ask India or any other developing countries to indicate a peak without there being any clarity about what is the level of support which may be available is really not very reasonable.
Question: India in any policy paper has not mentioned any such ……(inaudible)….
Foreign Secretary: We have made it quite clear that our per capita emissions will not exceed the average of the industrialized countries at any point. We have said that. But the rest is dynamic until you …(inaudible)….
Question: Mr. Menon, do you think today’s meeting of G-5 is a kind of an event when you feel that a certain identity-based agenda of G-8 is consolidated now because of today’s developments? How far G-5 has gone on the global stage? There are too many groupings. So, it has become mode level or it is on plateau? How will you view today’s events?
Foreign Secretary: I think the relevance of the G-5 comes from the fact that large developing countries have a certain congruence of their economic and other interests. I think that is where the relevance comes from. In today’s situation where the world is in an economic crisis and certainly the uncertainty in the international system is so high, that relevance increases. So, the higher the uncertainty in the international system, the more relevant groupings like this are. We do have a large degree of congruence among ourselves. We have issued common position papers. We have agreed for five years now you see on the big issues of the day, whether it is climate change, whether it is energy security. On each of these issues we speak with a common voice. So, to me that is the relevance of it. If you ask how far does G-5 have an identity, really the answer to that is please look at what we say, look at what we do together, look at what we represent as a group. Certainly, today it is much more relevant than it was five years ago when it first started.
Question: India has been advocating restructuring of the International Institutions of Governance and UN reforms. Was this topic covered during the deliberations today and what was the progress?
Foreign Secretary: It was covered both in the discussions in the G-5 and also, you will notice, there is very a strong endorsement of the idea of a restructuring of the Institutions of International Governance in the G-5 declaration which was adopted by the leaders. In the discussions, every single member of the G-5 spoke of the need for restructuring not only of the International Financial Institutions which is what the G-20 had agreed to because they were concentrating on the economic crisis and how to get out of that but also for the UN Security Council and for other Institutions of International Governance. If you look at the declaration, there is a very strong statement there. Every one of them spoke of the need to do this.
Question: In the G-5 declaration there is a call for a new Comprehensive UN Convention on Terrorism. Could you elaborate on that?
Foreign Secretary: We have been discussing in the UN now for some time, I think eight years or so, the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism. Everybody is agreed, I think across the board, that there is the need for one comprehensive international legal instrument which enables us to deal with this phenomenon of international terrorism. But the devil is in the detail, actually in some of the definitional problems, also in some of the exemptions as to what qualifies as terrorism. This is something that is being negotiated in the UN in New York now for eight years. We think we are getting very close to an agreed definition. But I do not want to get ahead of ourselves here. You will notice, the G-5 of course endorsed the idea and said we need to do it. But we are talking to the other major groups in the UN. It is our hope that this convention - which everybody agrees we need, everybody feels would be useful – we can actually get done together within the next year or so.
Question: Coming back to the Doha Round question, what is our position? Are we ready to work on the 2010 timeframe in mind? The second question relates to the conversation PM had with Mr. Gordon Brown. You spoke about PM’s assessment. What was Mr. Brown’s own assessment …?
Foreign Secretary: Of what?
Question: Of whether the situation still continues to be fragile or how the recoveries were?
Foreign Secretary: On the first question, our position on Doha Round is clear. We as India have an interest in a predictable, rule-based system for international trade. We feel it is essential especially at a time when the temptation to be protectionist might be very strong in the middle of a crisis, that the entire world actually recommits itself to an open international trading system; and the Doha Round and the successful conclusion of the Doha Round would be one way of doing so. The terms of reference of the Doha Round are also quite clear. It is a development round; and it is supposed to be of assistance to the developing countries. So, on these terms we are united, and we are very happy to move forward on those terms, on the agreed terms. Whether this happens in 2009, 2010, 2011, we cannot predict. We are ready to do it as long as we are true to its mandate and it does actually do what it is promising to do. We have discussed this before, how important it is at this particular time for the world to take a stand against protectionism and to prevent any kind of lapse. So, this is where it becomes more important today that we move this process forward.
On Mr. Brown, I think Mr. Brown did not disagree. He did not say, “No, this is my analysis.” He did not disagree. But frankly he did not give us a clear idea of this is where he sees the world economy is going. But I got the sense that he agreed that yes, it was fragile and that certainly that some stimulus is still required, and that it will be dangerous to start rolling back these steps too early.
Question: On the issue of restructuring of institutions of international governance, there is this problem with China regarding accommodation of India in the Security Council. Did that come up for discussion?
Foreign Secretary: China is a member of the G-5. China adhered fully to the declaration. Read the declaration.
Question: Do you see that as a change in China’s position?
Foreign Secretary: No, I do not. China accepts also that these institutions need to be restructured and has said so herself.
Question: Does that mean we can say that China …(inaudible)….
Foreign Secretary: Do not put words in my mouth.
Question: If one were to analyze the statements made by the five Heads of Government today, the tone of the Mexican President and the Brazilian President was strident; our Prime Minister was quite moderate in the way he actually made his statement; South Africa was almost not there; and China was not interested. Actually it appeared like a developed country over there.
Foreign Secretary: This is your opinion. You do not expect me to comment on other Heads of State and Government and what they say or do.
Question: Do you see a difference in tenor, in the way these countries have …
Foreign Secretary: I am not going to comment. You know I would not.
Question: Did Pakistan figure in the discussion with Mr. Brown?
Foreign Secretary: Not that I know of, unless it happened when they were alone. It is possible. I told you what I heard.
Question: In Pakistan today actually Mr. Zardari admitted that they had nurtured terrorism for their own strategic interests.
Foreign Secretary: That was yesterday’s interview.
Question: Now that they have admitted …
Foreign Secretary: What else. Please read the rest of what he said. He said it is no longer so and nobody makes that mistake any more. Please read the rest of that statement.
Official Spokesperson: Thank you.