For Juan Rada, from Oracle, one of the key areas in the future is the evolution of telecoms networks that will enable the transportation of vastly increased quantities of services. While more and more national barriers will be broken and more complex forms of outsourcing will be developed, those networks also raise challenges. First, the rules and regulations of online systems are not clear and sometimes contradictory. We need a modernization of the judiciary system, he said, as the capacity to enforce the rules is now too weak.

Emmanuel Faber (Danone) declared that the food industry had no clue about how to achieve food security for a billion people. Business cannot help much alone. He called for de-synchronizing food and water from capital markets and volatility. As to the way forward, he said that more complex thinking was needed: “we are not in supply chains, we are in supply webs”. For instance, we need to take into account the externalities having social and environmental impact. He also said that the future WTO negotiations might require the inclusion of financial and social chapters.

William Echikson (Google) asserted that free expression was a human right for Google, but beyond that, there was a compelling economic case to be made for more open networks. The Internet was crucial to the future of the global economy as it contributes a lot to economic growth (more than 8 per cent of GDP in the UK). Therefore, it was essential that Internet-related trade enter into the WTO agenda post-Doha. We would need clear rules in trade agreements for the Internet to reach its full potential. Attempts to block the free flow of information will be the challenge of the 21st century, he said.

For Stephen Pattison (ICC, UK), the current economic and political situation raises the risks of an increase in protectionist measures. He advised the WTO to “think fast, think big, and think out of the box on how to handle all of this”. On Doha, he criticized the paralysis of the negotiations and made a comparison with the League of Nations in the 1930s which became irrelevant because it could not address the pressing challenges of the day. In business circles, the WTO is beginning to be seen as irrelevant to the real issues (globalization and internet), he said. Mr Pattison made some recommendations, such as to look hard at plurilateral negotiations. He also called for enhancing the monitoring capability of the WTO. Finally, he suggested that the WTO should get closer to business to better grasp the complexities of the globalized economy (while not becoming captive to special interests).

Wayne Paterson (Merck Serono) said that the pharmaceutical industry has been transferring resources to emerging markets with the opening of research centres in Shanghai, Beijing or Singapore. Emerging markets account for a greater share of their revenues and are now “mature” rather than “emerging”. He said that their particular challenge was to maintain IP for an industry that is driven by patents, and that the WTO could be more active in this area. The TRIPS Agreement was a good start but gaps still exist.
Questioned on the future of the food system, Mr Faber said that it will remain local, notably because of the climate change issue. Otherwise, a global system would face systemic risks. In response to a question from the audience about the role of businesses to push their governments for a conclusion of the Round, Mr Pattison said that businesses focus on where the action is, which means bilateral and regional processes for the moment. Following a question on private codes of conduct, he declared that CSR was at the centre of attention in business circles but that it should not become a bureaucratic exercise.