Report of a Conference Call between Members of the
Task Force on Competitive Challenges
March 12, 2013
8:00 AM Washington, DC Time
 
 
Bruna Angel, A. B. Joshi, Sebahattin Gazanfer, Kevin Latner, Andrew Macdonald, and Malgorzata Zimniewska participated in the call.
Members and observers who were not available: Andreas Engelhard, Mark Messura
Andrei Guitchounts and Terry Townsend served as Secretariat.
 
Next Meeting:
The next conference call will be held on March 26, 2013 at the same time: 8:00 AM in Washington, DC.
 
Report of the Meeting
 
1. Election of Officers:
 

1. Task Force members asked Kevin Latner to serve as Chair and A.B. Joshi to serve as Vice Chair. Both agreed to do so.

 
2. Outline of Work:
 
The Secretariat asked the Task Force to prepare a report for delivery to the 72^nd Plenary Meeting in Colombia during September/October 2013. In preparation for delivery of the final report, the Task Force will be asked to present a preliminary outline of work to the Standing Committee at a meeting on April 18, 2013 and a draft report to the Standing Committee on June 6, 2013. The Task Force is not expected to conduct original research but is asked to pull together summaries of studies already conducted, to highlight major findings and to develop recommendations for government and industry action.
 
Members of the Task Force suggested that their report could include the following components:
            Setting the framework: recent trends in cotton’s market share.
            Reasons why: major reasons for the recent loss of market share:
including prices,
volatility of prices,
tight supplies,
technical performance of fibers, and
other factors
                        Strategies for market share improvement:                   
Identifying the benefits of Cotton,
                                    Role of new technologies/products in fiber competition,
                                    Need for better tools of price risk management,
                                    Need for worldwide fiber content labeling at retail,
                                    Impacts of competition among cotton production systems
                       
 
3. Next Step:
 
Task Force members will refine their suggestions for the organization and content of the Report to the Plenary Meeting and send their additional thoughts to Andrei Guitchounts (Andrei@ICAC.org) for compilation and distribution prior to the next conference call on March 26.
 
The conference call was adjourned at 9:00 AM Washington time.