Third Part of the ITTA Renegotiation


July 4, 2005

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UN Conference on the Negotiation of a Successor Agreement to the International Tropical Timber Agreement, 1994 (ITTA, 1994), Third Part was convened at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. Over 150 delegates gathered on the opening day. ▶ The conference could not finalize the terms of the new Agreement due to the big gap between the stance of the producer and consumer members and it was agreed to resolve the outstanding issues during the fourth session of the UN Conference in January 2006. ▶ The Korean delegation was not in favor of additional financial burden and presented a new financial system

UN Conference on the Negotiation of a Successor Agreement to the International Tropical Timber Agreement, 1994 (ITTA, 1994), Third Part was held from June 27~July 1 at the Palais des Nation in Geneva. It was not able to finalize the terms of the new Agreement on definition, objectives and voluntary funding. There was divergence between delegates who were not ready to compromise on issues. The outstanding issues are to be resolved during the fourth session in January 2006.

39th session of the International Tropical Timber Council and associated sessions of the Committees will convene in Yokohama. There will be discussions on ITTA account.

Main topics of discussions

o Definition of producer member
- Whether to define the producer member as the "net exporter of tropical timber" or
delete "net"
o Distribution of votes for consumer members
- EU suggested to reduce the initial votes to 5 since in 2007 the number of members
will increase to 27 .
- China suggested 15 and the US suggested 20.
o Finance
- EC proposed an assessed “work programme sub-account” to be placed under the
Administrative Account. Provide 50% from the administrative account and remaining
half would be funded 60/40 between producer and consumer.
- US was not in favor of creating new account. US proposed that one half of this
account would be funded 50/50 and the remaining half would be funded 70/30
between consumers and producers, respectively. He noted this would effectively
result in a 60/40 split
- Producer member proposed splitting assessments for the Administrative Account
80/20 between consumer and producer members

Main Activities of the Korean Delegation

The Korean delegation:
o Suggested to hold one regular session of ITTC a
year and focus on efficient management of financial
resources.
o Clearly stated that Korea is not in favor of increasing
the current voluntary contribution. No stance was
made on newly creating a sub-account.
o Was not in favor of the proposal of the producer
members to increase the operation fund to 20
times as much. The stance was support by many
consumer members.
o Stressed that many members are both importing and exporting tropical timber and pointed out the logical inconsistency in the proposal of the producer members.
o Presented the stance on financial issues based on the financial system proposed by EU, US, Japan, producer members, etc.

Translated by Int＇l Cooperation Division
☎ +82-42-481-4082 (Mr. Ko Junho)