Independent and Self Regulatory
Commercial diplomacy forms the greatest proportion, in numbers of the trade, economic, commerce and industry professions as a whole. This new class of professionals - the Commercial Diplomats have emerged from the requirements for policy coordination and negotiation among nations on issues affecting global trade and investment.The training of this new class of professionals has been haphazard at best and has relied largely on a defacto apprenticeship system that generates neither enough qualified nor sufficiently well trained professionals.
This gap between the demand and supply of qualified certified Commercial Diplomats has to be met through dedicated training programmes focused on the skills and knowledge required of competent professionals in the field. At no time had there been a professional body for commercial diplomats and the profession of commercial diplomacy had never been regulated or accredited. If professional training, regulation and accreditation are available for architects, lawyers, accountants, arbitrators, doctors, business managers; why not for qualified, competent and certified Commercial Diplomats?.
Another, but very important consideration was that the title 'Commercial Diplomat' is a generic term and there is nothing to stop anyone identifying themselves as 'Commercial Diplomat' which, consequentially, does not distinguish the skilled, accredited and competent from the unskilled and this could be detrimental. Commercial Diplomacy is a unique profession that requires all the finesse and knowledge of traditional diplomacy. In addition it requires an in-depth knowledge of commercial and macroeconomic analysis of policy issues ranging from health and the environment to the prudential supervision of insurance, the politics of trade and foreign investment, national trade laws and global trade rules, international dispute settlement and the role of the media in forming public opinion.