At its 1236th meeting, on 16 September 2024, in accordance with past practice, the Trade and Development Board established the Preparatory Committee for the sixteenth session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and elected the President of the Trade and Development Board as its Chair.
The Board tasked the Preparatory Committee with the substantive preparatory process leading towards the Conference.
NOTIFICATION
On behalf of the Chair of the Preparatory Committee (Prepcom) for UNCTAD 16, H.E. Ambassador Paul Bekkers (Netherlands), the UNCTAD secretariat has the honour to inform member States that the first session of the Prepcom will take place on Thursday, 20 February 2025 beginning at 10 a.m. in room XIX of the Palais des Nations.
This will be the opportunity for regional groups and individual member States wishing to do so to present their respective position papers, which will form a major basis for the elaboration of the Chair’s draft negotiating text, scheduled to be presented on 24 March 2025.
The proceedings of the meeting will be as follows:
- Opening by the Chair of the Prepcom
- Video message by the Secretary-General of the UN Trade and Development
- Presentation of position papers by groups and individual member states
- Any other business
Regional groups and member States wishing to present their position papers are reminded that they should inform the secretariat one day in advance of the meeting and provide an electronic copy of their paper to correspondence@unctad.org.
Additionally, regional groups and member States are invited to limit their interventions to a maximum of 10 minutes.
If the position papers will be presented through prepared statements, it is also requested that copies of those statements be provided to the secretariat one day in advance to correspondence@unctad.org.
(signed)
Miguel R. Bautista
Secretary of the Trade and Development Board
