Plenary opening

The four panellists of the inaugural session provided points of view on the four subthemes of the Public Forum and detailed some of the questions to be addressed in the sessions of this year’s event. In the context of food security, the discussion dealt with how derivative speculation and subsidies for biofuels impact on grain prices. The issue of sustainability and how trade can contribute was at the heart of the debate on trade in natural resources. Regarding the “Made in the World” initiative, the prevalence of intermediary goods in current trade flows was noted, as well as the necessity to adjust trade accounting practices to this new reality. Finally, discussions on the way ahead for the multilateral trading system highlighted some of the challenges faced by the Doha Round negotiations, including the possibility to shift to sectorial or plurilateral agreements on some of the topics and so unblock the negotiations.