INFOSAMAK/FAO Expert Consultation on International Fish Trade and Food Security The Centre for Marketing Information and Advisory Services for fishery products in the Arab Region has organised, in Casablanca/Morocco, from 27th to 30th January 2003,”The Expert Consultation on International Fish Trade and Food Security”, in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The opening session of the consultation commenced with the welcome of participants and was followed by the reading of the speech of Mr.Tayeb Ghafes, Minister of Marine Fisheries of the Kingdom of Morocco, by Mr.Rhanmi Tijani, General Secretary of the Ministry of Marine Fisheries. The Minister expressed his pleasure that this important meeting was being held in the Kingdom of Morocco and stressed the importance of sustainable exploitation of fishery resources and of aquaculture potential, the increased contribution to food security, the promotion of trade and market diversification and the dynamic promotion of the label “Maroc”. He also highlighted the efforts being undertaken in Morocco to improve the social conditions of the fishing communities. On behalf of the Director General of the FAO, Mr. Amor Ben Romdhane, FAO Representative in Morocco, highlighted that the issue of fish trade and food security is in line with the overarching commitment of the deliberations and the spirit of the World Food Summit. Mr. Abdellatif Belkouch, Managing Director of INFOSAMAK mentioned the importance of trade inside the arab region for food security and expressed his felicitation to the participants stressing the importance of the subject to be discussed and wished the meeting all success. This consultation has joined together more than 30 participants from different countries of the world (India, USA; Norway; Italy; Egypt; Nigeria; Thailand; Malaysia; Morocco; Belgium; Vietnam; Kenya; Senegal; ..). The main topics which were discussed during this consultation are included in the program. The main recommendations regarding the work program are : 1)- -Conduct background study on the normative framework for fish trade and food security -Train and improve capacity of policy makers and technical personnel on international issues dealing with fish trade and food security -Expand the FAO work on the distribution of costs and benefits in the fishing industry 2)- -Organize a consultative process on the normative framework -Integrate the fish trade and food security issues into the proposed FAO umbrella 2 programme -Prepare an analytical framework taking into account conflicting interests with specific illustrative cases studies 3)- -Prepare the technical guidelines on fish trade and food security -Conduct studies on the impact of fish trade on household food security 4)- -Develop medium and long term projections on the impact of fish trade on food security