Given the changing structure of the world economy and recent events such as the international financial crisis and the stalemate of multilateral trade talks in Geneva (the Doha Round), fresh thinking concerning the future global trade regime continues to be required. In today’s highly integrated/globalized world economic environment, trade has become not only an established and major component of international economic policy but also part of the larger whole of current and future public policy issues – climate change, income distribution, inequality, investment, technology and skill exchange, the movement of people and of ideas, energy, and health.

The key objective of the annual ITEM is to ensure that the best innovative ideas are brought out and discussed by international trade practitioners, scholars, and interested observers from developed, emerging, and poorer countries and regions to advance negotiations, research, and public understanding. The trade system’s principles, rules, structures and players are all subjects of discussion by the trade experts; the present time resembles closely the early post-war period when experts of that day set out to create and re-shape the contemporary trade system.