From December 13 to 18, Ministers of Trade will gather in Hong Kong for the Sixth World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference. A commitment to and a process for ending the agricultural subsidies of industrialized countries will loom high on the agenda and could be the key to the success or failure of the Doha Round. Considerable positioning and posturing for Hong Kong is underway. The panelists will share their perspectives on what is the state of the WTO agriculture negotiations, what are the positions of key players, and what needs to be done to have successful outcomes in Hong Kong.

Kevin Watkins is the Director of the Human Development Report Office at the United Nations Development Programme; Eugenio Diaz-Bonilla is Executive Director for Argentina and Haiti at the Inter-American Development Bank; H. E. Abdoulaye Diop is Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Embassy of the Republic of Mali; and Joachim von Braun is Director General of the International Food Policy Research Institute.