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02 May 2003

U.S., Australia to Help Rebuild Iraq's Farm Sector

(USDA envoy says oil for power is immediate agricultural need) (5420)
The United States and Australia will jointly help rebuild agricultural
production, the food delivery system and the agriculture ministry in
Iraq, says J.B. Penn, U.S. under secretary of agriculture for farm and
foreign services.
Penn in Washington briefed reporters in a telephone conference call
May 2, joined by the Department of Agriculture's newly named senior
ministry advisor Dan Amstutz in Kuwait. Amstutz had been meeting with
Trevor Flugge, Australia's agriculture representative in Iraq.
Getting more oil flowing to power flour mills and pump irrigation
water is one of agriculture's immediate needs, Amstutz said.
Harvesting summer cereals in May and June and planting rice in
irrigated land are additional short-term concerns, he said.
There is enough wheat in Iraq being distributed by the U.N. World Food
Program (WFP) or ready to be shipped to last until fall, Amstutz said.
The United States has provided nearly 600,000 metric tons of food aid
to the WFP for Iraq.
Iraq historically is a rich agricultural area, but in recent years
agriculture has deteriorated from a lack of machinery, little
maintenance of irrigation systems, soil salinity and animal health
problems, among other factors, Amstutz said. Only half of the
country's three million hectares of irrigable land is being irrigated,
he said. The centrally planned agricultural system also lacked
incentives for farmers to increase production, he added.
"With better inputs and machinery updates, and some new practices
regarding salinity ... it's not overly optimistic to say that they can
double their wheat and barley and rice production," Amstutz said.
The official said that within two to three years, weather permitting,
Iraq can begin to see greater agricultural productivity.
The Iraq agriculture ministry has proposed establishing a poultry
industry to add to the country's protein supply and will receive
support for the project from the U.N. Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO), Amstutz said.
Amstutz will move into Baghdad to begin work as soon as the area's
security situation improves, Penn said.
(Note: In the following text, "billion' equals 1,000 million.)
Following is the transcript of the telephone press briefing:
(begin transcript)
[U.S. Department of Agriculture]
Teleconference
with USDA Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Services J.B. Penn
and Dan Amstutz, U.S. Senior Ministry Advisor for Agriculture
Regarding Agricultural Rebuilding Efforts in Iraq
OPERATOR: I would now like to introduce your host for today's
conference, Alisa Harrison. Ma'am, you may begin your conference.
MODERATOR: Thank you, Operator, and welcome, everyone, for joining us
today.
Before we begin, I wanted to lay out our agenda for today. Dr. J.B
Penn will make a few opening remarks followed by Mr. Amstutz, and then
we'll open it up for questions from reporters.
I would ask that when the questioning begins, if you would state your
name and the news outlet that you are with, that would be most
appreciated as we will be providing a written transcript of this
session after the call today.
So with that, I will turn it over to Dr. Penn.
PENN: Thanks, Alisa. We appreciate the opportunity to visit with you
today. I will be brief in a few opening remarks here.
The topic of course is Iraq reconstruction and the efforts that are
focused around agriculture. As all of you know, a transitional
government is being put in place in Iraq, led by General Garner who is
now in Baghdad.
USDA has been actively involved in this effort from the inception.
We've had people who have been involved, first, here, and then in
Kuwait, and, now, in Baghdad. We have an FAS [Foreign Agricultural
Service] staff member, Mr. Lee Shatz, who is with General [Jay] Garner
[head of the Defense Department's Office of Reconstruction and
Humanitarian Assistance] in Baghdad now, and as you know, last week
[Agriculture} Secretary [Ann] Veneman named Dan Amstutz as senior
ministry advisor to coordinate USDA's activities and to be her liaison
with the military authorities.
We're very pleased to have Mr. Amstutz in this role. His background is
unique, I think. He has a long stint of government service. He has a
long stint in the private sector, very knowledgeable of the grain
trade, very knowledgeable of economic development activities, and has
a broad understanding of the resources that we have in the Department
to make available for an activity of this kind.
For rebuilding agriculture and for rebuilding the ministry of
agriculture in Iraq, we are conducting this activity, jointly, with
Australia as has been reported. The Australians have named Mr. Trevor
Flugge to have a joint role with Mr. Amstutz.
Both governments have lots of expertise, knowledge of the region,
knowledge of agriculture, both have resources that are complementary,
and so our objective is to bring both of these resources to bear, to
try to rebuild the agricultural capability as quickly as is possible.
Now there are two sets of objectives, the immediate one which, is with
the end of hostilities and the end of the Saddam Hussein regime, to
try to get society functioning again, and that includes, of course,
food and the food delivery system, and then to get the agricultural
plant itself operating again.
Our longer-term objectives of course are to develop a market-oriented
economy, to have a very vibrant private sector, to have a competitive
economy, one that is market-driven.
Now Mr. Amstutz is now in the region. He is in Kuwait. He has been
there, getting briefed by the people that we've had in the region.
He's been meeting with Mr. Flugge. He'll be returning home in a few
days and then he'll be going back to Baghdad when the security
situation is such that it's okay to go there.
We wanted to have this little session today to make Mr. Amstutz
available, so that he could report on his firsthand observations and
impressions and the activities that he's coordinating with Mr. Flugge.
We're going to try to do this on a regular basis, I don't know how
frequently, but as this will be an ongoing process and as we work
toward both the immediate and the longer-term objectives that I
mentioned, we want to try to keep everybody posted on that.
So with that, I will stop and turn this over to Dan.
AMSTUTZ: Thank you, J.B., and good afternoon. As J.B. has said, there
are several steps to this overall process and you're familiar with the
important elements of what I consider the immediate steps, the food
distribution operation underway, that has been ongoing and managed by
the World Food Program, and then the process of getting the oil
flowing again, turning on the power, and getting water available
throughout the country.
Obviously, all those things are important and they're interrelated. We
need the oil, the fuel, the turbines to generate the power and we need
power to mill the wheat into flour, and to pump the water in the
irrigation areas.
During the early meetings between Trevor and me, we also identified
several other areas that we considered to be of immediate importance.
One of these is the summer cereal harvest that's going to begin in the
irrigated areas in mid-May and continue into June as the harvest moves
farther north. This is for barley and wheat, and, secondly, the
planting of rice in irrigated land that is also an immediate concern
and needs to be done.
Now each of these elements requires various inputs for the summer
harvest to be successful. The ability to pay farmers for their
production is needed and that problem is now being addressed by the
financial members of General Garner's team, and on the rice we have to
get some pumps working and the Corps of Engineers is working on that.
So in these two areas that Trevor and I identified, they are known to
General Garner's people and they are part of the immediate package.
The ministry of agriculture in Baghdad has also proposed beginning,
development of a poultry industry to augment the supply of protein,
obviously super important in the diet, and fortunately, the FAO [U.N.
Food and Agriculture Organization] has done some work on this, has a
plan, has funds to help support it that were generated via the food
for oil program. So I think we'll see progress in that area in the
relatively near future.
Now as far as what I consider the next step, the beginning of this
transition to a market economy, and the revitalization and the
restructuring of Iraq's agriculture, it's of key importance that the
leaders of the ministry of agriculture, the ministry of irrigation,
and the ministry of trade are selected so that we can begin a dialogue
with them, and I can tell you that this is an ongoing process as we
talk.
Our agriculture guy up there, Lee Shatz, is working on the ministry of
agriculture complement and others are working on the ministry of
irrigation. Some of that, incidentally, is spearheaded by the Corps of
Engineers, and the ministry of trade is being worked on by State
Department people.
It's important to identify these people because the role of Australia
and the U.S. in this revitalization process is to facilitate the
planning of the Iraqis. I don't have to go into detail on this, I'm
sure. That this is Iraq's country, the country is the Iraqis, and we
want to facilitate the development as they view it. I'm hopeful that
we'll have leaders of vision and ambition, that occupy these jobs in
these ministries, and that we'll have exciting planning sessions in
the weeks ahead.
I don't want to be presumptuous and get ahead of events here, but let
me just repeat what others have said. Culturally and historically,
this is a rich agricultural area. Iraqis were irrigating production in
the Tigris/Euphrates area prior to the Greeks and Romans, thousands of
years ago.
In recent years, their agriculture has deteriorated. There's been a
lack of agricultural inputs, a lack of machinery, they haven't really
adequately dealt with the problem of soil salinity, and all these
things must be addressed, as they are addressed. Both Trevor Flugge
and I are very optimistic that agricultural output can and will
increase.
For instance, even though I know that most of Iraq's wheat acreage is
dry land, in areas akin to our Great Plains, incidentally, but still I
think with better inputs and machinery updates, and some new practices
regarding salinity, that it's not overly optimistic to say that they
can double their wheat and barley and rice production.
They were producing that much prior to the Gulf War and with the
rehabilitation of their irrigation system and dealing with animal
health problems, I'm really optimistic that we can see the building of
good animal, agriculture industries, not only poultry that will be
beginning shortly, but perhaps we'll see the Iraqis feeding sheep in
feedlots, develop some cattle feeding, and develop a dairy industry,
which had been tried before, and perhaps a resurgence in palm oil
production.
It's likely that Iraq will continue to be an importer but it is also
highly possible that they will produce more of their food needs
indigenously, and that they'll have a far more prosperous agriculture
than has been the case during the Saddam Hussein regime. That's
certainly the hope of Trevor Flugge and I, and we're quite optimistic.
That was a longer statement than I was going to make, so I'm open for
your questions.
MODERATOR: Operator, we will start the questioning session now, and if
I could remind the reporters to please state your name and your news
organization for the transcription purposes. Thank you. So Operator,
we can begin.
OPERATOR: Thank you. Our first question comes from Peter Shinn. Sir,
your question, please.
QUESTION: Thank you very much. Mr. Amstutz, could you give us an idea
of how long a process this may be in terms of getting agriculture to a
position where Iraqis are self-sufficient to a degree?
AMSTUTZ: Well, remember, I didn't say that they would become
self-sufficient, but I thought they could produce more of their needs.
I think this can happen relatively quickly. The planning part of this
and the development of the inputs that will be provided as desired,
that can happen quite quickly. And then over the next several years,
we can see the results of this -- obviously, weather permitting in the
dryland areas. So I think two or three years out, you can see the
beginning of the results of this, this greater productivity.
MODERATOR: Operator, before we take the next question, again I remind
folks to please state your news outlet as well before you ask your
question. Thank you.
OPERATOR: Thank you.  Our next question comes from Paul Singer.
Q: This is Paul Singer with Inside U.S. Trade. I have two questions
for you, sir. The first is I have heard some concern from U.S.
agriculture producers that there are barriers in U.S. law preventing
them from either going to Iraq or being held from the development
markets there. The second concern is that they are concerned that
Australia is getting the upper hand and will be in some way elbowing
U.S. exports out and cornering the market for grain in Iraq.
AMSTUTZ: Well, I think on your first question, the request by the
president of the U.N. really answers it. He has asked for the removal
of all sanctions that had been imposed on Iraq. And with that process
under way and completed, with the removal of those sanctions, all
American industry would have freedom to do business in Iraq.
On the question of exports, I should have added when I talked to the
immediate situation and what is ongoing and being done now, that via
the food distribution program managed by the World Food Program there
are plentiful supplies of wheat, for instance, either in-country or
committed for shipment to-country by the expiration of the Oil For
Food Program, which comes June 3rd. And those supplies should be
enough to handle needs, probably, through the summer into the fall.
And by that time, I would trust that the Iraqis, to the extent they
decide to enter the market then, that they would consider buying from
all areas, that market conditions would dictate who does the business.
The market would be free and open.
Q: And you see a concern that Australia is going to in some way cement
the market for their product and not for American product?
AMSTUTZ: Oh, I think what's always important is the quality, the
timeliness of shipments and arrivals, and the price. And that's what
being competitive is all about.
We have had no discussions about exports because it's so premature.
Q: Thank you, sir.
OPERATOR: Thank you. Our next question comes from Bill Tomson. Your
affiliation and question, please.
Q: Hello. My name is Bill Tomson. I'm with Oster Dow Jones. You
mentioned possibly a blossoming poultry industry in Iraq. We shipped
over a lot of wheat and other commodities. Will the U.S. be providing
poultry to Iraq to help get this industry growing? And second of all,
you said that Iraq has plenty of wheat. The United States has
dedicated at least 200,000 tons of wheat from the USDA account, and
possibly an extra 400,000 tons. It seems to me what you're saying is
that 400,000 tons might not be needed.
AMSTUTZ: Well, I'm not sure what all the World Food Program has
stirred into their supply picture. So I don't want to be incorrect
here, but with acquisitions that they have seen and know are there,
this adequacy is real.
What was your other question?  I'm sorry.
Q: Oh, about the poultry industry. You mentioned a possible poultry
industry growing there. I'm just wondering if U.S. poultry producers,
chicken-raisers will be helping out with that.
AMSTUTZ: Well, that would be up to the FAO, because they would be
managing that immediately. And I would -- I'll just guess. I would
guess that they would start with chicks, not with hatcheries. And the
chicks have to come from somewhere.
Q: Thank you.
OPERATOR: Thank you. Our next question comes from Richard Cowan. Your
affiliation and question, please.
Q: Hi. I'm with Reuters. You had mentioned a possible doubling of
Iraqi grain production. And later on, you'd mentioned two or three
years before productivity started having some noticeable increases.
Are you saying that there is the possibility that in two or three
years its grain production could double to 1990 levels?
And the second part of the question is can you envision a resumption
of the USDA Export Credit Guaranty Program to facilitate U.S. sales to
Iraq?
AMSTUTZ: Well, the answer to your first question is yes. In several
years' time I can see a return to those pre-Gulf War production
figures on wheat and barley, and rice. And those, in round numbers,
are about double what is forecast to be this year's production.
Q: Is "several years" meaning two or three?
AMSTUTZ: Yes. Obviously, I can't be sure, but logic tells you it can't
happen immediately. And then it depends on how quickly new processes,
new techniques are employed and new inputs are supplied. But it
certainly is possible.
PENN: On the second question about the eligibility for credits, let me
take a stab at that if I can. There are a number of steps that have to
be taken before Iraq can become eligible for CCC [Commodity Credit
Corporation] export credit guarantees. The first step in that
direction, of course, is resolving the U.S. sanctions against Iraq and
the U.N. sanctions which Dan mentioned.
The second point is that Iraq has not serviced its external debt for
probably 15 years, and there are questions about the total size of
that debt. Some estimates suggest it might be more than $100 billion,
excluding claims for reparations connected with the Kuwait Gulf War.
Now, we do know that CCC has paid over $2 billion in claims resulting
from Iraq's default on commercial credits and credit guarantees in the
early 1990s.
So to become eligible for new credits, Iraq, of course, would have to
become current on its existing debt obligations. And there are a
number of ways to do that, but the IMF [International Monetary Fund]
and the Paris Club would be crucial to that process. And Iraq must
complete that process and then have sufficiently high credit rating
that would allow CCC to provide guarantees again for commercial
exports.
We expect that the U.S. government's review of the Iraq credit
situation will be ongoing, and the Treasury Department will have a
lead role in carrying that out for the government. So we have to just
wait and see how that process plays out before we can talk about when
Iraq might be eligible for the Export Credit Guarantee Programs again.
OPERATOR: Thank you. Our next question comes from Emily Gersma. Your
affiliation and question, please.
Q: Hi. I'm with the Associated Press I just was curious, I'm not
really aware of how Iraq's land, if it would be able to produce enough
for the country to be pretty self-sufficient. Will it be
self-sufficient once production is back up to par, and perhaps doubles
as you say? Or is --
AMSTUTZ: "Doubling?"
Q: Yes. Is it going to continue to be reliant on food aid?
AMSTUTZ: "Well, first, doubling production does not make it
self-sufficient. Right now, in round figures, it imports between 60
percent and two-thirds of its food needs. So doubling its production
makes it more self-reliant but not self-sufficient.
That's important.
My hope is that we'll see all sectors of the Iraq economy start
growing and expanding as we see a realization of this transition to a
market-driven economy, and that Iraq will be able to buy what import
needs it has commercially, without the need for food aid.
Let me just add this, too, that I did mention earlier, that the dry
land, the wheat area in the north of Iraq is somewhat similar to our
Great Plains, which is true, but also the central and southern
irrigated areas are really somewhat similar to the Central Valley of
California. So by thinking of those comparisons, you see that there
can be richness in agricultural production in this country.
OPERATOR: Thank you. Our next question comes from Matt Kay. Your
affiliation and question, please.
Q: Yes. This is Matt. The Burns Bureau. Ambassador Amstutz, in a
recent press conference, here, in Washington, Australia's trade
minister, Mark Vaile said: We ought not just accept that this is a 2
million ton market for wheat. He said I mean with a properly operating
economy, it may be a 3 million ton market. So he says it is not a
zero-sum game, and therefore the piece of the cake, once this market
becomes commercial, may be bigger than it is now and may provide ample
opportunity for both the Australians and Americans to compete there.
Would you agree with his assessment, that this could be a larger
market than, let's say it was post, or before the Persian Gulf war?
AMSTUTZ: Well, anything is possible, but what I've said is I don't
think it will be as large, if we see the generation of more supplies
produced in Iraq, which I think is possible, and I might add, Trevor
and I agree on that, and I sense that perhaps the minister, when he
was talking, was not aware of what kind of production potential might
exist in Iraq."
PENN: I think Minister Vaile was also trying to make a larger point
and the larger point was that if we do a good job in helping
jump-start the Iraqi economy, that as the economy grows and consumer
incomes grow, that this is going to be a much larger market for food
and agricultural products generally than it was in the "pre" period,
and I think we find that true everywhere. That "dirt poor" countries
are not very good markets. The better markets are countries that have
a vibrant, growing economy, and I think that's what the minister was
saying, that if we can do a good job in getting this one off to a good
start, that it'll become a much bigger market overall, over the longer
term.
AMSTUTZ: And I agree with that a hundred percent. What J.B. says is
absolutely correct. That the richer the country, the greater
expendable income the citizens have, the greater variety of foods they
desire, and the bigger the market, the broader the market for all
manner of food product exports. And I agree with that.
Q: Just a quick follow-up. What about the debt that you mentioned
before, $100 billion outstanding debt and the need to use a lot of
that oil revenue for reconstruction? Won't that exert a downward
pressure on their ability to purchase those imports?
AMSTUTZ: Well, let me just say this, and I am not in any way involved
with the finances -- but when the oil starts pumping freely again and
when the control of it is with the industry, the oil industry of Iraq,
they'll be generating some $25 billion a year in oil export revenues.
Now that's a gross figure. It doesn't have subtracted from it the cost
of production and so forth. But just looking from a cash flow
standpoint, a $100 billion debt with cash flow income running $25
billion, seems to me to be something that could indeed be manageable.
It takes some restructuring, as J.B. has said, and I saw somewhere
where J.B. said that Iraq is not Afghanistan, and that's such an
important point.
That this is a country that has natural resources and can generate
wealth, and has a cultural history where it has been at the vanguard
of things. That Iraqis are well-educated people. They are eager and
ambitious, and I think Iraq can be a marvelous example to other
countries in this Mideast.
OPERATOR: Thank you. Our next question comes from Philip Brasher. Your
affiliation and question, please.
Q: Yes. I'm with the Des Moines Register. Could you talk a little more
about the current yields or production that you're talking about
doubling, and also a little bit about the state of the livestock,
agriculture there, and finally, can you address at all the prospects
for exports of other commodities, farm equipment, that sort of thing?
AMSTUTZ: Let me try to address it this way. That under Saddam Hussein
and particularly since the Gulf War, when the food for oil program
began, several things existed. First, that agriculture was a central
plan industry. Decisions were made at the top and sifted down, and
Iraq clearly had a low food price policy. I'm told that individual
Iraqis paid 12 cents, not $12, 12 cents a month for their food basket,
which included flour, rice, vegetable oil and poultry.
Clearly, price level dictated by the government like that drains
agriculture of incentive and drains it of the ability to purchase and
apply inputs, whether that input is phosphate and potassium
fertilizer, or whether it's saline-resistant feedstock, or whether
it's good veterinary practices, the whole gamut, and so we have here
-- Saddam has been around for what? Thirty years. We've just drained
agriculture of resources and incentives, and with a transition into a
market economy, we can see health returning to agriculture and
incentives to employ good farm practices and modern techniques.
So that's the sort of macro overview of that. I don't have all of the
statistics in front of me but, for instance -- and obviously
production differs each year because roughly two-thirds of the wheat
is produced on dry land, one-third on irrigated land, and I think it's
about the same percentage on barley, I'm not sure, and of course rice
is all irrigated. But in 1990-91, Iraq produced 1.8 million tons of
barley. This year, the latest estimate I've seen is 700,000 tons.
In 1990-91, Iraq produced 1.2 million tons of wheat and the latest
figures I've seen this year are between 800- and 900,000 tons. Iraq
has something like 11 million hectares of arable land. There are
different figures floating about as to how much of that is actually
cultivated today and one figure that I keep seeing, and again, we
don't know for sure, we'll learn these things as we go along, is maybe
about half of that is being cultivated today.
About half of the three or so million hectares that are irrigable are
being irrigated today. Partly this has to do with probably a lack of
farm machinery and equipment, deteriorated. I'm sure there's a need
for replacement parts in both the machinery and the irrigation
equipment, and again it's a question of are there incentives to
encourage farmers to modernize, and do they have the wherewithal? I
might add also here, another reason for my optimism is that under
Saddam Hussein Iraq tried collective farming. Interesting. They tried
it. They tried to be Marxist. But they discovered it didn't work. And
so they transited to a leasing and, I'm told, a sales-of-land effort,
although I have a feeling that the land that was sold went to the
hierarchy of the Baath party -- which is perhaps a little bit
misleading. But with leased land, farmers have, obviously, more
incentive when they're farming it than under a collectivized system.
So this is perhaps a very disjointed answer to your question, but I
hope it provides some of the flavor.
Q: How about the livestock agriculture? Is any much functioning there?
AMSTUTZ: It's just been depleted. And poor pasture conditions -- there
again, these things can be improved. The sheep are raised by nomadic
tribes. There is no such thing as a sheep feedlot, that I'm aware of.
And not much beef production. I don't have figures, but -- and poultry
has been tried. And as you probably know, Iraq has a history of
importing chicken parts, for instance. They are meat eaters. It's not
a vegetarian society. And dairy has been tried. Back in my time as
under secretary, we shipped some dairy cattle over, but the management
of the herds was lacking knowledge and it just didn't do well. So they
are a dairy product importer right now.
MODERATOR: Operator, we have time for two more questions.
OPERATOR: Thank you. Our next question comes from Sonja Hillgren. Your
affiliation and question, please.
Q: Farm Journal. Ambassador Amstutz, congratulations on this post. I
can't think of a better person to do it.
I wanted to ask you about the livestock that you're talking about. Do
you see a, maybe, change in the crop mix in Iraq to provide more feed,
or do you see them maybe importing feed grains?
And also I wanted to ask, there's foot and mouth in Iraq. Is that any
bit of a problem in developing their livestock or maybe in personnel
coming back? Are there protection methods around to keep the foot and
mouth from coming to the U.S.?
AMSTUTZ: Well, one of the important notes on our list of notes relates
to veterinary assistance and animal health issues. I'm confident that
we can get the expertise over here to deal with this subject and that
the problem, to the extent it exists, can be managed and controlled.
This whole area of animal health and veterinary assistance, I think,
is -- you will find is an important area that the Iraqis want to
address and that, certainly, the expertise exists in the United States
as well as Australia to do that.
Iraq, incidentally, does produce some corn and some sorghum. I didn't
mention those because they are of lesser importance, and when we were
focusing on the harvest there -- of course, it's not going to be
harvested for a quite some time. So it's possible that in some
irrigated land we see more corn production, but it's also possible, as
animal agriculture increases, that we see feed ingredients coming in
here as imports by Iraq. I think that's one of the areas we could see
growth in trade.
OPERATOR: Thank you. Our final question comes from James Webster. Your
affiliation and question, please.
Q: Hi, Dan. I'm from the Webster Agricultural Letter and Agri-Europe.
I've got a political question or two. There's a lot of undercurrent,
really, of political criticism, some of it just sort of an ad hominem
attack on you spurred by Oxfam in the U.K. [United Kingdom] I don't
know what you did to them when you lived in London. But they seem to
think that you're not qualified to do this because, number one, you
have a lot of free-market rhetoric, you used to work for Cargill, and
you wrote the GATT [Generalized Agreement on Tariffs and Trade]
proposal for Ronald Reagan.
Now, my questions are is it true that you believe in the free market
and will not advance Marxist ideology over there? Number two, when did
you leave Cargill -- was it more than 20 years ago? And -- well, go
ahead with it.
AMSTUTZ: Well, thank you, Jim. It is absolutely true that I advocate
free markets for healthy agriculture, a market-oriented system. I left
Cargill in 1978 and have had no affiliation with them whatsoever. I
can tell you I have never been accused of showing favoritism to any
company all the time I was in public service, and the time I was in
governmental service, people that know me and know my record know that
comment by Oxfam published in a broad sheet press that is similar to
some of the other press over there, is just not true.
MODERATOR: On that note, I want to thank everyone--
PENN: A high note, we might add.
MODERATOR: Yes, that was a high note. I want to thank everyone for
their participation today. I just want to reiterate what Dr. Penn said
earlier, we do hope to hold these regularly.
So again, thank you for your participation today and we will bid you a
good day.
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)