The UN Sub-committee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods (TDG) held its 21st Session in Geneva this past July 1 to 10. Chaired as usual by Sergio Benassai (Italy) with Frits Wybenga (US) as vice-chairman, it was attended by experts from 22 countries, observers from four others, representatives from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Universal Postal Union (UPU), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and 21 non-governmental organisations. The delegates were welcomed by Capel Ferrer, director of the Transport Division of the UN Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), who informed them that the Secretariat had been allocated a temporary appointee for TDG and a new full-time member to work for the Sub-committee of Experts on the Globally Harmonised System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS). The first action taken by the TDG Sub-committee was to set up a working group to deal with the additional provisions for the transport of gases. Chaired by Herman Puype of the European Industrial Gases Association (EIGA), it was attended by representatives from Canada, France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, the US and four trade associations. The base text the group had to deal with resulted from earlier discussions (HCB August 2002, page 4), since when a further four official submissions and four information documents had been received. One of these had been submitted by the International Standardisation Organisation (ISO) and reported on the progress that body had made on developing the relevant standards.
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