The present issue of the Commodity Market Review (CMR) marks a significant departure from past issues of the same named FAO publication. In the past the main focus of the CMR was a review of developments in agricultural commodity markets, a description of the current situation, and a short term outlook for these commodities. The CMR 2001-2002 departed somewhat from this format, by including some short analytical articles, that tried to explain in more detail the factors that shape commodity market developments.
In the past few years, the situation and outlook of food and agricultural commodities is being presented on the Commodities and Trade Division Web pages of the FAO Web site at www.fao.org (under "Departments" ES, Commodities and Trade Division) or directly at www.fao.org/ES/esc. This form of information provides greater scope for timely dissemination of detailed market information and more frequent updating than what is possible with conventional printed publications. The Web pages have undergone redesign that has made them more accessible and more user friendly. It is thus unnecessary to repeat the same information in printed form.
The present issue of the CMR, therefore, concentrates exclusively on in-depth analysis of some major issues that have been identified by FAO as crucial to world agricultural commodity market developments in the past two years. These include falling commodity prices, the changing experiences of food import bills for developing countries, the changing nature of food emergencies, issues of transmission of market signals from international to domestic markets, the impact of the Doha Development Round of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on developing countries, and tariff escalation in agricultural commodity markets. The research presented here in more technical form is intended to provide the analytical basis for FAO statements and recommendations on a variety of commodity and trade related issues. There are, of course, other issues that merit attention and research, and it is the intention of the Commodities and Trade Division to analyze in the future as many of these issues as possible within the resources available.
Alexander Sarris
Director
FAO Commodities and Trade Division
Rome, 2003
