It's a pleasure for me to send this message to our friends in Australia and New Zealand for this dynamic event. As Americans, we are proud to have fostered such a long friendship and enduring association with your countries. As GMA, we are equally proud of the collaborative relationship we've built with the Australian Food and Grocery Council during our organizations' histories.

Although I'm half a world away, it's significant that many of the issues our companies face today are strikingly similar. Indeed, we share more than the same members - we share a common goal to promote greater growth and profitability among the world's most widely-recognized branded product companies.

I'd like to share with you our perspective on some of the issues underpinning growth and profitability for food and consumer product manufacturers both in the U.S. and globally. First, I'll outline from our vantage point the topics that are top-of-mind among our member companies, particularly in the areas of consolidation, new opportunities for growth, advances in technology and new supply chain innovations. I'd then like to discuss one of the imperatives I'm most passionate about - the critical importance of establishing and promoting a global agenda for our industry.

I think it's clear to everyone involved in this industry just how significantly the global landscape for food and consumer product companies has changed in the past few years. From an organizational standpoint, those changes began in 1999, when we saw the first rapid wave of consolidation on the retail side. While consolidation on the customer side has slowed, the outlook for the future is telling. Today, the top 10 worldwide retailers own 30 percent of total grocery sales; by 2010, industry analysts predict 70 percent of retail grocery sales will be in the hands of just six players.

On the manufacturing front, we saw an equally rapid number of mergers and acquisitions that dramatically changed the ownership and brand positioning of some of our largest companies. Today, manufacturers are still ironing out the details and wringing out synergies from these new acquisitions. But with the aftermath of September 11 and the fizzle of many of the over-hyped dot-com companies, it's still a mixed outlook for manufacturers. On the one hand, FORTUNE magazine's recent list of the most profitable industries ranked food products in the top five of 50 industries for return on shareholder's equity and return on assets. Yet top-line sales growth has slowed, many product categories are mature in developed countries and retail store brands are emerging as a key retailer growth strategy.

Indeed, our challenges remain constant as the pressure to grow mounts. First, manufacturers must continue realizing the initial vision of their acquisitions and deliver promised synergies to their shareholders. Secondly, we must build and leverage our core brands, continually looking for real innovation to meet an ever-demanding consumer base. In its "Play Big" approach, PricewaterhouseCoopers reminds companies that they must regain their influence with consumers by capturing a greater "share of life." In other words, we must transform from a supplier of products and transactions, to develop a service and life-needs relationship with consumers. And we must learn how to build equity with the consumer across whatever channels and formats they demand, whether it's supermarket, mass, convenience, drug, foodservice or direct to the consumer. In short, our industry must become intensely focused on customer service and greater consumer connectivity.

The call to act more cooperatively with our trading partners is hardly a new concept. More meaningful collaboration with our customers has been a goal for decades, but what progress have we really made? The industry is still arguing over the equity of slotting allowances, still grappling over who will pay the cost for retail execution and still stalling on adopting standards to reduce the cost of new technology. Persistent issues like invoice deductions, the ongoing problem of unsaleables and the squandering of trade promotion dollars still manage to create a culture of mistrust and behavior that we must unlearn.

Make no mistake, we are making some progress in worldwide collaborative efforts like the Global Commerce Initiative. GCI is seeking to promote more efficiency throughout the supply chain and provide more value for the consumer. But I believe true collaboration will require a new outlook from both sides of the aisle. Seeking alliances with competitors, customers and potential allies outside our "normal" domain - and outside our domestic borders - will be a requisite for success in the 21st century. These times demand a new level of candor, a tolerance for debate and a greater exchange of ideas within our industry relations dialogue.

The increasing complexity of supply chain operations and the challenges of meeting consumer needs both domestically and internationally means there has never been a time when it was more critical for manufacturers and their customers to work together - to share information, to link up electronically, to improve efficiencies and to become more effective at getting our message about our brands and the retailer's message about the value they offer out to the consumer. We need to work together on forging more closely united partnerships, emphasizing greater supply chain visibility and rapidly responding to changing market conditions. And all of this will require focusing first on the basics - on getting that perfect order and matching invoices, on establishing an item catalogue, on developing global business standards and on automating some of the selling and procurement processes.

With a new agenda based on collaboration, we cannot overlook the need to "clean-up" untidy supply chain practices. We must find more creative and results-oriented ways to address outmoded and costly business practices that have survived the old era into the new - practices that have carried over non-value added costs. To get where we need to be requires creative and bold leadership from manufacturers and retailers. It requires new thinking about how to rid the supply chain of costly practices. And it requires a new drive and commitment to eradicate troublesome problems ranging from unsaleables, to invoice inaccuracy, to non-value added fees and other costs.

At GMA, we are looking at how tools like Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment may help us get there. Aiming to seamlessly link the entire supply chain from one end to the other - from manufacturer to consumer - CPFR has the power to bring together demand and supply planning. While our companies have taken a conservative approach to CPFR implementation, a recent GMA study on the subject revealed that manufacturers' pilot efforts are reaping some benefits. Among the more experienced CPFR users, 67 percent report improvement in forecast accuracy, and 56 percent report a decrease in inventory. The bottom line? Manufacturers are keenly searching for new ways to improve forecast accuracy, increase sales and improve internal communications. Getting there will require not only new technological capabilities, but a strong commitment to sharing information that promises to have a profound effect on the way we as manufacturers and retailers deliver value to the consumer.

This sense of cooperation is showing promising signs of extending to the realm of technology in our industry. As you undoubtedly know, the U.S. was swept up in the excitement surrounding trading exchanges two years ago. While the buzz on these exchanges may have died down since that initial launch, there's little doubt that technology - and exchanges like Transora - will play a significant role in transforming our industry's supply chain. Right now, however, there's a distinct sense that it's time to focus on the basic building blocks that will help us make some of these technological promises a reality. In other words, the collaborative sales planning that I just mentioned won't become a reality if the more elemental work of developing common data standards and populating an item catalogue isn't finished.

We are equally excited about one of the most revolutionary technological developments our industry has seen in decades - and one that has major implications for our respective members across the globe. That's the creation of radio frequency identification technology and the electronic product code (EPC). This next evolution of the Universal Product Code - under development at the Auto-ID Center at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology - will allow us to track information and intelligence on consumer products and supply chain locations in a profoundly new way. While the UPC helped us determine what we were selling, the new EPC tags will help companies track what customers are buying. And the potential cost savings to our industry are significant: Procter & Gamble, for example, hopes to use the intelligence provided by the EPC to cut its inventory by 40%, or $1.5 billion. In this new world, where connectivity is not limited to computers, but includes everyday goods like food and household products, the way products are made, distributed, marketed, purchased, consumed and replenished will be transformed. Indeed, our industry must act swiftly and decisively to adopt these new technologies because consumers will demand it.

We hear the term "globalization" so often today that it has become a loaded, almost clichéd term built into our business lexicon. But the idea of globalization has real, tangible meaning for our industry. Mega retailers operating around the world have forced our companies to rethink their old business paradigm of producing locally for local consumption. Because these retailers have opted to source globally, our companies must now think about how to meet consumer needs outside familiar borders. This trend has been fueled by increased purchasing power and living standards of many consumers worldwide, leading to demands for high quality, diverse food products.

Advancements in global transportation and distribution systems have helped to increase the efficiency and reduce the costs of global sales. However, as we all know, there are still many barriers to trade that hamper and oftentimes block international sales. In order to break down these barriers, I believe it is incumbent on our industry to commit to a new global agenda. We must work together to take advantage of ongoing multilateral and regional trade negotiations; collaborate to ensure that international standards for food products remain based on science are promoted to facilitate trade; and assure our own success in setting global standards for technology.

The call to action I'd like to put forth encompasses four main components:

On the issue of global standards, there is little debate that we must come to agreement on a common language to conduct electronic transactions regardless of what country we're doing business in. Since the rush to engage in e-commerce activities and the creation of several manufacturer/retailer trading exchanges, the commitment toward adopting and implementing global standards has been slow to gel. In the two years since the formation of Transora, we are still grappling with how to standardize terminology, product classification and the overall structure of the information manufacturers produce within their own companies - and, in turn, the need to standardize this information among trading partners, across the world.

Last month, we put a firm stake in the ground when nearly 20 top manufacturers and retailers signed an open letter to the industry urging companies to adopt the UCCnet registry as the North American standard for electronic data sharing. In Australia, you are near completion of populating your own data catalogue. Our goal is one in the same - to link the data residing in item catalogues across the world so that we can significantly improve our ability to stock and sell products from other countries at a lower cost. With a global commitment toward this work, we can truly revolutionize business practices in this industry and eliminate non-value-added supply chain costs.

Our interest in a global agenda for the industry extends far beyond the realm of improving industry business practices. We are intensely aware of the need to open doors to new avenues of trade for food and beverage companies - which brings me to the second imperative in our global agenda. Last fall, trade negotiators agreed to conclude a new global round of trade negotiations by 2005. At the core of that agenda are negotiations on agriculture aimed at reducing tariffs, eliminating export subsidies and reducing trade distorting domestic supports. Although we are keenly interested in seeking more market-oriented agricultural support programs, we are most interested in ensuring commercially meaningful market access for processed food and beverage products-and that means a serious reduction in prohibitive tariffs that keep us out of valuable markets.

Right now, the average global tariff on agricultural products is 62 percent, as opposed to just 4 percent for industrial goods. That's a mark up of over two-thirds of the cost of the product on the supermarket shelf. And that markup represents just the average tariff on agricultural commodities. Processed food products often face even higher tariffs because of a process called tariff escalation, where the tariff increases with the level of production. As a result, in many cases, processed food products face mega-tariffs of well over 100 percent, making it prohibitively expensive to export food products.

Yes, the global food tax must go, but we have our work cut out for us. The farm bill recently passed in the United States disappointingly moves us away from free markets toward more regulated, subsidized markets - clearly demonstrating how difficult this task is going to be.

I've been talking a lot about global issues, but now I'd like to turn to something closer to home, the potential for a US-Australian free trade agreement. Just like the saying "all politics is local," in the same manner, all things global are also bi-lateral. This means, that many of the initiatives that I have talked about on a global scale are also relevant to a US-Australia Free Trade Agreement.

I believe a new free trade agreement could have enormous benefits as a model agreement for regional and multilateral negotiations. For example, although trade between our countries is relatively small, cross-investment is extremely high. A state of the art investment agreement in the FTA could serve to enhance investor protections and reduce barriers and could also be used as a model for future talks in the WTO. A similar approach on an enhanced agreement on technical barriers to trade could be used in the same way. In essence, a free trade agreement will solidify a long-held alliance between our countries and will increase collaboration in international forums like the WTO and the Codex where we already have a strong foundation of shared values.

I've focused on just one aspect of the trade negotiations of importance to us. Obviously there are many more, including ensuring that non-tariff barriers to trade, such as discriminatory labeling policies, are eliminated. Although there are ongoing discussions on labeling in the WTO, the most immediate and important forum working on labeling is in the Codex Alimentarius Commission where new standards for biotech labeling are being debated.

On the biotech front, we need a much more consistent, harmonious system for the approval, labeling and marketing of biotech foods. First, much more attention must be focused on getting good, science-based standards on biotech labeling in the Codex. This means working together to build alliances and educate countries about the safety and benefits of agricultural biotechnology. It also means demonstrating the importance of a science-based standard. We have a big challenge in Codex, but working together, we could move toward a science-based standard and help to turn back the tide of mandatory processed based systems. We must come to a global agreement - based on science - that allows the benefits of this wonderful new technology to be reaped by farmers as well as consumers around the world.

Finally, opening markets through trade reform and science-based regulatory policies will not mean much to our companies unless we can work together to bring some of the benefits of globalization to developing countries. Although there have been great gains in development in certain areas of the world like Asia - where over 500 million people were lifted out of poverty in the last decade - there are still more than 1.2 billion people who make less than one dollar a day. Helping developing countries through capacity building is truly enlightened self-interest for the consumer products industry. Stronger, more stable countries with higher earning potential increases our customer base, while at the same time promotes political and economic stability necessary for long term growth.

Over the last year we have been working under the auspices of the World Economic Forum to develop consensus recommendations for poverty alleviation through trade liberalization and capacity building. This is a unique process, bringing together multinational companies, international NGOs and multilateral institutions like the World Bank and the WTO to define common goals and areas for increased collaboration. In the coming year, the WEF project will begin to detail private sector initiatives in capacity building and outline opportunities for public-private partnership in this area. In practical terms, this means technical assistance in food safety standards, increased infrastructure development and sustainable development initiatives - all of which many of our countries are already doing on a project-by-project basis in developing countries. It is our hope that we can work to provide a more systematic approach to public-private development initiatives that really work to enhance private sector development in these countries. I hope that you will consider joining us in this endeavor.

Today, I've called upon our industry to adopt a global agenda based on four fundamental priorities: committing to and adopting global standards; opening markets and reducing tariffs for consumer products by making headway on the WTO negotiations; developing a strategy to achieve science-based regulation of biotechnology on a global level; and committing to industry-wide engagement in efforts to help developing countries improve their infrastructures and build sustainable new markets for our industry.

In doing so, I imagine a business environment for our industry where we've reduced out of stocks, speeded time to market, achieved greater invoice accuracy, decreased inventories, and most importantly, improved consumer value by getting the right products at the right price, where and when the consumer wants to buy them.

I imagine a worldwide marketplace where the playing field is level, where we've eliminated export subsidies and opened the door to commercially meaningful market access for processed foods and beverages.

I imagine a time when consumers across the world are reaping the benefits of biotech foods, when we've developed sound, science-based standards on biotechnology.

And I imagine a marketplace where the benefits of globalization extend beyond our stable nations to developing countries, where our customer base has expanded and opportunities for real growth have exploded.

It is my hope that we can work together, as allies with other organizations across the world, to make this vision a reality.