UNCTAD16 ministerial roundtable: Towards resilient, sustainable and inclusive supply chains and trade logistics

Excellencies, honourable ministers, dear friends,

Welcome to this roundtable on global supply chains – such an important subject.

Thank you to all the panellists for being here with us.

A ship that once crossed the Red Sea in days now sails for weeks around the Cape of Good Hope. The Suez Canal operates at 70% below normal capacity. Freight rates that were stable for years now swing wildly month to month. These aren't just logistics challenges – they're development challenges.

I’ll make two points: one on context, another on solutions.

I start with what's happening. Global supply chains face simultaneous pressures from three directions.

Geo-economic disruptions that force ships onto longer routes, raising costs and emissions while threatening economic stability. Environmental transitions that demand lower emissions, yet over 90% of the active fleet still runs on conventional fuels. Digital transitions that reshape operations but create new vulnerabilities like cyber-risks that our security frameworks weren't designed initially to handle.

But beneath these shocks lies something deeper: a structural reconfiguration of global trade itself.

Countries are rethinking where they source inputs, where they locate production, and with whom they integrate their economies. What once moved smoothly across oceans now encounters new barriers: tariffs that shift investment decisions, export controls that redirect technology flows, geopolitical considerations that override pure economic logic.

According to our research, all three challenges of the supply chain reconfiguration strategies are nearshoring, concentration and something that we didn’t take seriously at the beginning – friendshoring – peaked together in 2023, but only friendshoring has held its gains, growing at around 3% last year.

This brings me to who bears the cost. Developing countries, especially SIDS, LDCs, and LLDCs, absorb the sharpest impacts.

SIDS watch import bills soar while export competitiveness falls – according to our models, higher freight rates have an impact on SIDS inflation that is five times the global average. LLDCs also pay transport costs up to three times the global average. When freight rates spike or routes shift, they lack the capacity to adapt quickly or negotiate better terms.

We must ensure the triple transition to zero-carbon shipping, digital systems and resilient trade routes – are just transitions.

That means remembering that supply chains actually are not just ships and cargo but also the 1.9 million seafarers who operate the global fleet, mostly from developing countries. The ports that need climate resilience and digital infrastructure. The transit corridors linking landlocked countries to markets. The partnerships between public and private sectors that make trade facilitation work.

Getting transitions right requires coordinated action. Ports need investment to handle climate impacts, the new vessel technology and seafarers need training for digital and low-carbon systems. LLDCs need transit corridors that are reliable. Countries need regulatory frameworks that enable innovation while managing new risks.

Excellencies,

UNCTAD has worked on these challenges across multiple fronts. Our Review of Maritime Transport 2025 documents disruptions and their development impacts.

Our work, for example, in the Black Sea Initiative has given us hands-on experience of both the complexity of the challenge but also the feasibility and impact of the solution. Our technical cooperation helps countries build transport and port capacity, strengthen trade facilitation, and navigate sustainable and digital transitions.

This conference's outcome document recognizes this work and seeks to build on it to promote resilient supply chains for development. Your insights today on translating that recognition into concrete action will be essential.

Before concluding my statement, allow me to share an important announcement.

Following the success of the first UN Global Supply Chain Forum in 2024 in Barbados, we are happy to formally announce that the second UN Global Supply Chain Forum will be hosted in 2026 in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in collaboration with the Ministry of Transport and Logistics Services of the Kingdom and the Saudi Port Authority Mawani. 

It is now my distinct honour to first thank you and second, to invite His Excellency Saleh bin Nasser Al-Jasser, Minister of Transport and Logistics Services of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and His Excellency Suliman bin Khalid Al-Mazroua, President of the Saudi Port Authority Mawani, to join me on the podium for the formal handover and a commemorative photograph to mark this important milestone. 

Thank you.