On Sunday, 2 November, the 13th meeting of the Informal Advisory Group convened in the morning. The Group discussed preparations for negotiating a successor agreement to the ITTA, 1994, in particular the outcome of the working group held in Curitiba, Brazil in August 2003. The Group also proposed that the Council consider four decisions on: projects, pre-projects and activities; the ITTO Biennial Work Programme for the Years 2004-2005; disbursement of Executing Agencies Fund; and the management of the administrative budget for 2003. On Monday, 3 November, the Council will meet in the morning, followed by meetings of the Producer and Consumer Groups, a Joint Committee Session, and Committee Sessions.

The thirty-fifth session of the International Tropical Timber Council (ITTC-35) will meet from 3-8 November 2003 in Yokohama, Japan. The session will consider, inter alia: listing proposals for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES); elements relating to the negotiation of a successor agreement to the 1994 International Tropical Timber Agreement, including a report on a study on internationally traded and potentially tradable environmental services provided by tropical forests; the report of the Expert Panel on Management of Project Implementation; progress on achieving the Year 2000 Objective; guidelines for the restoration, management and rehabilitation of degraded and secondary tropical forests; promotion of sustainable forest management (SFM) in the Congo Basin; forest law enforcement in the context of sustainable timber production and trade; implementation of the work programme for the year 2003; review of, and contributions to, the Special Account and the Bali Partnership Fund; and the Fellowship Programme.