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4 February 2011
 From 31 January till 1 February, the Global Commodities Forum (GCF) took place in Geneva. The event was organized by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). GCF is an independent integrated high-level platform bringing together the key players for them to discuss the principal issues of the contemporary commodity economy; these issues include the instability of the commodities markets and their interconnection, the efficiency of commodity policy, the long-term tendencies and stability of the production, the consumption and distribution of the commodities, the conditions of the commodity supply chain, the state of the business practice and innovations.
The Forum was participated by ministers and high-rank government representatives in charge of commodities or agriculture; managers of the companies involved in the production, trading or financing in the sphere of hydrocarbons, metals or foods; representatives of the international organizations; famous experts, academicians and representatives of the non-governmental organizations of the corresponding specializations. At the plenary session moderated by Noe van Hulst, IEF Secretary General, among other speakers, there were: Supachai Panitchpakdi, UNCTAD Secretary General, Pascal Lamy, WTO Director General, and Ali ibn Ibrahim Al-Naimi, Saudi Arabian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources.
Alexander Epishov, MIEF Principal Analyst, spoke at the plenary session dedicated to the coordination and promotion of the cooperation between the countries possessing the energy resources. The speech outlined the forming new energy world order; it provided analysis of the key factors, determining the threats and risks in the global energy industry, and highlighted the main political contradictions. Special attention was paid to the role of Russia in the global energy industry both today and within next decade. It was noted that the Russian authorities and expert community realized the unsoundness of the current economic model as well the scale of the danger for the Russian economy constituted by dependence on the commodities. The report also said that the tendency to economy diversification and investment promotion had to be followed by radical measures for changing the investment climate and fundamental business conditions as a whole. Another thing to accompany that trend was increasing the state financing of the infrastructure, risks and threats.
In his report, A. Epishov voiced the thesis that Russia began to turn the direction of its energy policy to the worldwide energy values and to the way of the global positive tendencies. Within this context, he appreciated the initiative of development of the new Russian Energy Safety Doctrine.
The information about the Global Commodities Forum may be found on www.unctad.org.
Translated from Russian into English by Literra translation bureau
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