Controlling Food Prices in
Turbulent Times – An Agenda for South Asia
Session
No. 29; WTO Forum 2011 Geneva -
20 September 2011; arungoyaldelhi@gmail.com
Abstract of Session
World food prices rose by a steep 43
percent in 2007 creating shock waves around the globe, specially in food deficit countries of Africa and
Asia. More such shocks are forecasted in the near future on account of
imbalances and mismatches.
South Asia covering mainly India,
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka accounts for a quarter of the world
population. It is a key player in wheat, rice, sugar and edible oil in world
food markets. This region can play a role as a market maker to control food
prices and move regular supplies to Food Deficit Countries. During periods of
uncertainty and volatility arising from natural factors or economic crisis, it
can act as a swing factor to turn the direction of prices.
Therefore this session at the Forum
will examine the following issues:
(a) Commodity,
currency and financial spot and future markets in the global food trade for
true price discovery and control of speculation.
(b) World
food prices and export and import QRs in food trade in checking volatility.
(c) Sanitary
and phyto-sanitary measures as non-tariff barriers,
Doha Round, Food Security and AoA and their role in checking
food price.
(d) Ports,
warehousing, transport, handling and trade facilitation bottlenecks to move
food in the supply chain quickly and at low cost.
(e) Suggestions
for South Asia co-operation and role of individual members in crafting measures
to moderate turbulence.
Background of the Organizations
The
session will be jointly organized by a team of World Trade Centre Mumbai, a leading Trade Promotion Organization
and Academy of Business Studies, New
Delhi, a think tank on world trade.
The two bodies are working on the subject of WTO for the last 17 years. They publish
the Weekly World Trade Scanner for
the last 12 years which reports and analyses the issues of the world trade and
WTO and also publish the website worldtradescanner.com
which is updated every day.
|
Moderator |
Mr Arun
Goyal, Director, Academy of Business Studies, New Delhi |
|
Speakers |
·
Dr. Harsha V.Singh, Deputy Director
General, World Trade Organization, Geneva, Switzerland
|
Contact Point
Mr Y.R.Warerkar
Executive
Director
World
Trade Centre Mumbai
Email:
executivedirector@wtcmumbai.org
Tel:
91-022-22181992 / 66387320
Address:
31st Floor, Centre 1 Building, World Trade Centre Complex, Cuffe
Parade, Mumbai 400005, INDIA