The thirty-third session of the International Tropical Timber Council (ITTC-33) will meet from 4-9 November 2002, in Yokohama, Japan. The session will address the renegotiation of the International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA) and emerging international trade issues of relevance to the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO); forest law enforcement in Africa and in the context of sustainable timber production; the role of phased approaches to certification as a tool to promote sustainable forest management (SFM); ITTO's role in international and regional organizations and fora; progress on establishing a database of statistics on trade in bamboo and rattan; promoting SFM in the Congo Basin; the 2003 work programme; progress on achieving the Year 2000 Objective; review of, and contributions, to the Special Account and the Bali Partnership Fund; and the Fellowship Programme.

The 31st sessions of the ITTC's Committees on Economic Information and Market Intelligence (CEM), Reforestation and Forest Management (CRF), and Forest Industry (CFI) will also meet to, inter alia: consider reports on completed projects and pre-projects; conduct ex-post evaluations; review projects, pre-projects and activities in progress; consider project and pre-project proposals; and discuss policy work. The ITTC's Committee on Finance and Administration (CFA) will convene its 12th session to review, inter alia: the draft Administrative Budget for 2003; contributions to the Administrative Budgets for 1986-2002; the status of the Administrative Account under the 2002 Budget; arrearages of Members to the Administrative Budget; the status of the Special Account and the Bali Partnership Fund; and appointment of auditors for 2003.