49. The World Forum took note of the list of Working Parties and Chairs (WP.29-176-01) and the draft 2019 calendar for WP.29 and its subsidiary bodies (WP.29-176-02).

50. The 2019 calendar and the list of Working Parties, Informal Working Groups (IWG) and Chairs are reproduced in Annexes II and III to the session report.

174. AC.3 noted the information, as of 5 November 2018, on the status of the Agreement of the Global Registry and of the Compendium of Candidates (ECE/TRANS/WP.29/1073/Rev.23), the status of the priorities of the 1998 Agreement (based on WP.29-176-04 as reproduced in annex II to this report) and items on which the exchange of views should continue. AC.3 noted that notifications and the mandatory reports on the transposition process through their Permanent Missions in Geneva to the secretariat, are publicly accessible on the UN website. AC.3 agreed to always send the above-mentioned reports and notifications through their Permanent Missions in Geneva and directly to the secretariat (Edoardo Gianotti) to ensure updating of the status document, which is the monitoring tool of the agreement. Finally, AC.3 requested to its representatives to provide the secretariat with the coordinates of their corresponding focal points to the agreement, appointed in their capitals to draft the reports and notifications to keep them informed in the exchange of information through the above-mentioned website.

151. The representatives of EuroMed introduced the latest updates on the EU-funded project involving five North African countries (WP.29-176-32): Algeria, Egypt, Libya (currently inactive), Morocco and Tunisia and five Middle East countries: Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, State of Palestine, and Syrian Arab Republic (currently inactive). The project had already been introduced at the November 2017 session of WP.29 (WP.29-173-24 and WP.29-173-25). The project had been recently extended until 2022.

152. The EuroMed project had identified thirteen agreements, including the three vehicle agreements administered by WP.29 on which the work is focusing on. The resulting accessions to the UN agreements are progressing slowly, as administrative reform in the project countries is time consuming.

153. The EuroMed representative highlighted the added value of collaboration with OICA and CITA and was looking forward to a strengthened collaboration with IMMA.

154. IMMA expressed support for the initiative and was looking forward to a closer collaboration with the EuroMed project.

155. The EuroMed representative reported on the implantation progress of the 1958 and 1997 agreements, objects of the work held in the region, and highlighted the collaborations between technical services in Europe and in the EuroMed countries. The representatives of Morocco, Israel, Jordan, Algeria, Tunisia and the State of Palestine (statement delivered by the representative of EuroMed) presented their national situation on vehicle certification and PTI (Informal Documents WP.29-176-33 to 38).

156. The representative of EuroMed presented the draft Road Maps on the accession to and implementation of the United Nations 1958 and 1997 Agreements (ECE/TRANS/WP.29/2018/163).

157. The representative of USA noted that the 1998 Agreement is lacking in the EuroMed report that is focusing mainly on the implementation of the 1958 and 1997 Agreements. He wondered if information on the 1998 Agreement could also be added to the EuroMed report.

158. The Secretary of WP.29 emphasized that all three vehicle agreements were treated on an equal footing in the World Forum and that roadmaps to accede the three agreements have been prepared by the EuroMed team and the secretariat (WP.29-176-08 and WP.29-176-26). The secretariat then presented document WP.29-176-13, the draft Road Map for accession to and implementation of the United Nations 1998 Agreement, which could become an integral part of the Road Maps publication.

159. The representative of EuroMed confirmed that their scope of work only included the 1958 and 1997 Agreements and that they would seek consent for including information on acceding to the 1998 Agreement (WP.29-176-13) in their Road Maps publication from the responsible department of the European Commission.

160. WP.29 welcomed a complete Road Maps publication, covering all three agreements.

161. The representative of CITA thanked EuroMed for the activities held in the region and for the example that such project represents for other countries in the world.

162. The Chair of WP.29 was pleased with the project outcomes and praised such initiatives as best practice examples that could be replicated in other developing regions.

140. WP.29 was informed that document ECE/TRANS/WP.29/2019/30 contains a road map for accession of the 1998 Agreement which had been presented at its 176th session.

173. The fifty-fourth session of the Executive Committee (AC.3) was held on 14 and 15 November 2018 and chaired by the representative of Japan. The representatives of 16 of the 37 contracting parties to the agreement attended: Australia, Canada, China, the European Union (representing Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom), India, Japan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Norway, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, San Marino, South Africa, Tunisia, the United States of America and Uzbekistan.

146. The secretariat reported on actions taken in the framework of the responsibilities of the World Forum on the third pillar “Safer vehicles” (WP.29-176-06).

147. The secretariat presented WP.29-176-13 introducing the objective and draft content of the proposed publication on "Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) of Applying United Nations Vehicle Regulations for Road Safety ".

148. The representative of Malaysia expressed support for the initiative of the secretariat to develop the publication. The representative offered to share the Malaysia Automotive Institute’s experience and to prepare CBA reports as support to this activity of the secretariat.

149. The World Forum supported this activity of the secretariat as a useful tool to develop future regulatory initiatives in the framework of the three agreements under the purview of WP.29 and invited interested parties to assist the secretariat in this endeavour.

182. The representative of Japan introduced WP.29-176-31, which incorporates the comments of other contracting parties into former WP.29-175-29 that was distributed at its June 2018 session, concerning the priorities on new items, particularly those to be developed by GRVA (see agenda item 2.3, paras. 51-61 of this report).

163. The representative of Global NCAP presented Informal Document WP.29-176-39 highlighting the unsatisfactory results of crash tests of certain vehicle models sold in South Africa.

164. The representative of South Africa pointed at the fact that the vehicle model showing poor crash performance was one of a different vehicle category, not subject to frontal impacts regulatory requirements.

181. AC.3 considered ECE/TRANS/WP.29/2018/164 (superseding ECE/TRANS/WP.29/2018/34) aimed at providing an updated overview of the priorities of the Programme of Work (PoW) of the development of UN GTRs or amendments to the existing ones. AC.3 endorsed ECE/TRANS/WP.29/2018/164, (corrected at page 4 by adding square brackets around the expected date for finalizing the RDE GTR to reflect the anticipated need for additional time for completion and corrected at page 6 concerning UN GTR No. 12 by replacing GRE with GRSG) and requested the secretariat to keep it as a reference for further update at its next sessions.