300th African Business: top of the pile.

Hearty congratulations for achieving your 300th edition--and impressive it is. For anyone working on international issues, your journal should be on the top of the reading pile.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Understanding Africa is crucial, because Africa is becoming more and more influential in world affairs. Last month, African nations stood together to reject detrimental "new issues" proposed in the WTO trade talks in Geneva; meanwhile South Africa's recent alliance with Brazil, India and China is becoming an economically powerful counterforce to the US and Europe.

Africans also led the negotiations for a global "bio-safety" treaty, finalised last year, to regulate trade in genetically engineered organisms, and now lead the effort to achieve more flexible rules governing the production and trade in pharmaceuticals.

Our organisation, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, would be delighted to contribute more information on the cutting-edge role played by African leaders in these and other international negotiations. Their leadership will affect not just the African continent but the global economy as a whole--and the future of all humanity.

Many thanks to African Business for its coverage of these issues: from an African perspective, yes, and yet well aware of the implications for all of us.

Mark Ritchie and Kristin Dawkins

Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Minneapolis, USA