A Round Table meeting on International coffee biotechnology initiative was held on the afternoon of 13th October at Board Room, Hotel Ashok, a parallel session as part of the ASIC 2004.

The Round Table was organized as follow up of the 'Bangalore Declaration' released on the occasion of International workshop on coffee biotechnology on 29th January 2004, with the broader objective of launching an international consortium on coffee genomics.

The Round Table was chaired by Prof. Andre Charrier, ENSAM, France and Dr. Renu Swarup, Director, Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Govt. of India. In all 49 scientists from 13 different countries (producing and consuming) attended the Round Table and participated in the deliberations. Prof. Akhilesh Tyagi of Delhi University with his rich experience in Rice genome sequencing consortium and Dr. S.P. Rao, Vice President, M/s Indo American Hybrid Seeds, Bangalore also participated and shared their viewpoints during interaction.