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12 February 1999

This morning, the General Committee decided to recommend to the plenary the inclusion of an additional item to the agenda of the fifty-third session, entitled: Observer status for the Customs Cooperation Council in the General Assembly. This item was proposed by Chile and the request is contained in document A/53/236. Should the Assembly proceed to include this item, the agenda of the current session would come to a total of 169 items.

The plenary will reconvene on Wednesday, 17 February in the afternoon to take up this issue and resume consideration of several other items, including the Election of members of the Committee for Programme and Coordination (to fill a remaining vacancy for African States); Appointment of a member of the Joint Inspection Unit (Japan was requested to propose a candidate); Confirmation of the appointment of the Secretary-General of UNCTAD; announcement of the appointments of four additional members of the Committee on Relations with the Host Country, and others.

Following the adjournment of this meeting, the President will convene a meeting of the Open-Ended Informal Consultations of the Plenary on agenda item 30 (UN reform: measures and proposals), to continue consultations on the Millenium Assembly, as mandated by resolution 53/202 of 17 December 1998.

The Open-Ended Working Group on Financing for Development completed its session yesterday under the chairmanship of the Permanent Representatives of Austria and India and agreed on the tentative schedule of consideration of eight main elements of the report of the Secretary-General (A/53/470) which serves as the basis for its deliberations. It will reconvene from 14 to 18 March and then again in April.

The Open-Ended Working Group on the Question of Equitable Representation on the Security Council and Other Matters Related to the Security Council reached today the mid-point of its current session which will continue until the end of next week. In this week's deliberations, close to 50 delegations spoke in the general debate. This morning, the President introduced a programme of work for the next six months and proposed the methods of work for the deliberations. Sessions are scheduled to take place each month, grouped around specific themes. This morning, the Working Group is having an exchange of views on the President's proposal and that meeting is still in progress.