11. The 121st session of WP.29/AC.2 was held on 20 June 2016, chaired by Mr. A. Erario (Italy) and was attended, in accordance to Rule 29 of the terms of reference and rules of procedure of WP.29 (TRANS/WP.29/690 and Amends.1 and 2), by the Chairs of GRB (France), GRE (Belgium), GRSP (United States of America), GRRF (United Kingdom), GRSG (Italy), the Executive Committee (AC.3) of the 1998 Agreement (United Kingdom), by the representatives of Belgium, Germany, Japan and the Republic of Korea, the United States of America and the European Union, and by the Vice-Chairs of WP.29 (Italy), GRPE (India) and GRSP (Republic of Korea).

12. The WP.29/AC.2 reviewed and adopted the draft agenda of the 169th session of the World Forum. It recommended that the Administrative Committee of the 1997 Agreement (AC.4) should not convene. WP.29/AC.2 also reviewed the draft agenda for the 170th session of the World Forum, scheduled to be held in Geneva from 15 to 18 November 2016.

13. The secretariat informed AC.2 about the staff resources following the post cut and its impact on the services provided to WP.29 including i) a partial discontinuation of the consolidation of UN Vehicle Regulations and Resolutions, ii) updating the status document of the 1958 Agreement prior to each WP.29 session only and iii) uploading on the website final texts of new regulations and of amendments to existing ones in English only.

14. AC.2 endorsed the proposal from Japan , the United States of America and the European Union, on actions by the secretariat to increase transparency in the World Forums activities by (a) easing participation of stakeholders by providing the related information on its website for individuals and NGOs, (b) proposing for improvements of the website access with, for example, a question and answers (Q&A) section, description of the regulatory processes and headings related to key topics such as electric vehicle, automated driving or ITS, (c) increasing the quality of minutes from IWG by establishing a standardised reporting template, (d) by including the deliverable of the statement of technical rational and justification for draft UN GTRs at an early stage in the terms of reference of the relevant body drafting the UN GTR, (e) reflecting on possibilities for stakeholder consultations prior to the establishment of UN GTRs and (f) defining and prioritizing the programme of work in a more strategic and inclusive manner.

15. The Representative of Japan reported on the progress of the IWG on International Whole Vehicle Type Approval (IWVTA), including the progress and major results made in the pre-testing programme, the list of UN Regulations applicable to IWVTA and the Q&A document.

16. WP.29/AC.2 reflected on ways to streamline the completion of the session’s proceedings by identifying amendment proposals that could be immediately transferred to AC.1, as so called “A-points” in order to gain more time for substantial discussion.

18. The secretariat reminded GRs to inform the secretariat about any new abbreviations brought into use in their documents.