Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I will take less than that because I will be giving formal comments to the committee tomorrow.
Mr. Chairman and committee members, it's my honour and privilege to testify today to such distinguished public leaders. Data governance is the most important public policy issue of our time. It is crosscutting with economic, social and security dimensions. It requires both national policy frameworks and international coordination.
In my testimony tomorrow, I will give more description, and then I will end with six specific recommendations. I will spend a couple of minutes today speaking to one of the recommendations that I would like to bring forward to the group, which is that you create a new institution for like-minded nations to address digital co-operation and stability.
The data-driven economy's effects cannot be contained within national borders. New approaches to international coordination and enforcement are critical as policy-makers develop new frameworks to preserve competitive markets and democratic systems that evolved over centuries under profoundly different technological conditions. We have arrived at a new Bretton Woods moment. We need new or reformed rules of the road for digitally mediated global commerce, a world trade organization 2.0.
In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the Financial Stability Board was created to foster global financial co-operation and stability. A similar global institution, say, a digital stability board, is needed to deal with the challenges posed by digital transformation. The nine countries on this committee plus the five other countries attending, totalling 14, could constitute the founding members of such a historic plurilateral body that would undoubtedly grow over time.
Thank you.