Frank Wu, regional head of structured commodity trade finance, Asia Pacific at Deutsche Bank, talks about China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI), synchronised global economic growth and what this means for the commodity finance market.

Maarten Koning, global head of structured metals and energy finance at ING, explains how the bank's Geneva commodity business is rapidly growing. He expects commodity producers to increase their capex and M&A activities, although capital models continue to hinder commodity finance deals.

Bob Angliss, deputy head of the commodities centre at Bank of China, talks about future growth plans, opportunities in the short-term transactional market, traders becoming banks and issues with uninformed regulators.

The commodity trading landscape is changing, as are the needs to insure risk by both commodity traders and producers. Katharine Morton spoke to brokers, insurers and the end users of insurance to see how the market is evolving. Is CPRI meeting end user needs and will bank regulation put the whole commodity trade insurance market under a cloud?

Resource nationalism is always present, but a recent increase in intensity fuelled by an uptick in commodity prices has got some in the growing electric vehicle (EV) market worried. In short, resource rich governments now have the balance of power in a highly competitive global market for lithium and cobalt resources, and long term supply contracts and regulation are being renegotiated with increasing frequency.