The Global Commodities Conference and the roundtables

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The association's main public event is the Global Commodities Conference (GCC). Its editions are listed for 2019, 2022, 2024, 2025 and 2026. The edition of 22 and 23 June 2026 took place at the LAC Lugano Arte e Cultura cultural centre with more than 200 participants from government, diplomacy, academia and industry and addressed the geopolitics of resources and monetary fragmentation. Banca Zarattini and the Fidinam group were its main sponsors, followed by Axion SWISS Bank, Cornèr Banca, Sirius Energy, TELF AG and Valcambi, with institutional support from the City of Lugano, the Cc-Ti, SUISSENÉGOCE and the ZCA.¹ The conference continues an earlier series. In September 2014 an international congress on commodity trading in Lugano brought together about 200 specialists, and on 29 September 2015 the trade finance journal GTR held its second Global Commodity Trade Finance Conference in Ticino with more than 200 participants.² In June 2022 the association held its conference at the LAC under the impression of the war in Ukraine and focused on the problems of steel trading.³

Beside the conference the association holds an annual general meeting combined with a "Commodity Roundtable", in 2026 on 26 November.⁴ It has also organized events abroad. In May 2015, together with the Cc-Ti and the Swiss embassy in Moscow, it held a roundtable in Moscow on international commodity trading and its financing, bringing together trading firms and banks specialized in commodity finance and discussing, among other things, international sanctions and the importance of the commodity sector for Russia and Switzerland.⁵ Seen from 2026 the Moscow roundtable marks the high point of the Russian orientation of the Lugano cluster, a year after the first Western sanctions following the annexation of Crimea and seven years before the comprehensive sanctions of 2022.

Training: from certificates to university programmes

Training is the association's second main activity. Together with the training firm ALMA Impact it runs a certificate programme, "Certified Commodity Trading Specialist", certified by the Swiss Association for Quality (SAQ). The first edition comprised 60 hours of teaching in English, was hosted by the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) and ended on 2 May 2024 with thirteen graduates, most of them already employed in trading firms or in banking, insurance, shipping, audit or fiduciary services.⁶ The third edition ended with eight graduates at the conference of June 2026, and a fourth one is planned from 24 October 2026 to 20 February 2027.⁷ The association also offers short courses, for example on contract chains and back-to-back risk in commodity trading in November 2026.⁸

The Lugano programme is smaller than the academic offers in the other two hubs. The University of Geneva has offered a Diploma of Advanced Studies in Commodity Trading in collaboration with SUISSENÉGOCE since 2008, which has trained close to 500 professionals, and added a shorter Certificate of Advanced Studies in September 2022.⁹ The Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts offers a Certificate of Advanced Studies "Commodity Professional" of 15 ECTS credits over six months at its Zug campus in Rotkreuz, in cooperation with the Commodity Club Switzerland, SUISSENÉGOCE and the ZCA.¹⁰ Switzerland Global Enterprise, the federal export and investment promotion agency, reported that the Lugano and Zug associations were collaborating with the Lucerne university to develop a specific degree.¹¹ No master's programme in commodity trading at USI or at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI) could be identified for this chapter. Lugano's academic contribution lies in the general finance, economics and law programmes of USI, treated in Chapter I.III, and in the hosting of the association's certificate.

Essentials. The Lugano Commodity Trading Association, founded in 2010, has about fifty members drawn from trading, shipping, banking, insurance, logistics, audit and fiduciary services. It is affiliated with the national association SUISSENÉGOCE and cooperates with the Zug Commodity Association. Its secretariat is provided by the Ticino Chamber of Commerce, its vice-president comes from the Fidinam group and its president from the steel trader DITH. Its main activities are the annual Global Commodities Conference at the LAC, a roundtable linked to the general meeting and an SAQ-certified training programme hosted at USI since 2024.

Notes

LCTA, "GCC" (above). ↩
RSI, "Lugano non è solo finanza", 16 September 2014, https://www.rsi.ch/info/ticino-grigioni-e-insubria/Lugano-non-%C3%A8-solo-finanza--831053.html; GTR, "Success story, focus on Switzerland" (above). ↩
RSI, 24 June 2022 (above). ↩
LCTA, homepage, https://www.lcta.ch (Annual General Meeting, Commodity Roundtable and Christmas aperitif, 26 November 2026). ↩
Bluerating, "Lugano Commodity Trading Association a Mosca", 28 May 2015, https://www.bluerating.com/mercati/645052/lugano-commodity-trading-association-a-mosca. ↩
Finews, "Trading di materie prime: i primi diplomati" (above). ↩
Tio.ch, 22 June 2026 (above); LCTA, "Formazione", https://www.lcta.ch/formazione/. ↩
LCTA, "Formazione" (above). ↩
Université de Genève, Geneva School of Economics and Management, "Commodity Trading", https://unige.ch/gsem/en/executive/commodity-trading/. ↩
Hochschule Luzern, "CAS Commodity Professional", https://www.hslu.ch/en/lucerne-school-of-business/continuing-education/cas/ifz/commodity-professional. ↩
Switzerland Global Enterprise, "Commodity trading gains importance in Lugano", https://s-ge.com/en/article/news/commodity-trading-gains-importance-lugano (undated). ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of August 2025.

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The Global Commodities Conference and the roundtables

Training: from certificates to university programmes

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