Besides presenting the cause for promoting ICE and its role in better international price discovery in black pepper, the association will also moot the idea of forming a co-ordination panel comprising trade bodies and governments of major producing countries to make the concept of international pepper exchange a workable proposition.

Former president of IPSTA and a delegate to IPC, Sanjay Mariwala, told The Financial Express that IPSTA will adopt a multi-pronged strategy to market the international bourse to producing nations at the two-day IPC meet slated to open on November 9.

He said IPSTA took up the job of setting up the international exchange at the behest of IPC two years back. ``We will now like to go back to IPC and share our experience with other playersin the field,'' Sanjay said.

He said, the USP of ICE that IPSTA will market during the conference will be the leadership position India enjoys in global pepper trade. ``We are the world leaders because we are the only producing country having a futures market for pepper,'' he said adding ``we will sell this as the major advantage of ICE to other countries.''

He said a pertinent question that would be raised during the presentation to the pepper community is that despite having an international price discovery mechanism why producers from other countries are not participating in ICE. He said IPSTA will also moot the idea of setting up a task force involving the spice trade associations and local governments of all major producing nations like Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brazil.

``The idea is to disseminate information among the growers in other producing nations and market the concept to ICE among them,'' Sanjay said.He said the setting up of an international task force would resolve many of theproblems presently nagging the ICE. These include the huge cost involved in funding the marketing blitz and better interaction between various players in the producing nations.

Sanjay said the consultants appointed by IPSTA to go into the details of lacklustre performance by ICE and to chalk out strategies to revitalise the exchange has submitted its first report. The IPSTA management would take a decision on the report in its next board meeting slated to be held immediately after the IPC meet, Sanjay said.