A.  Opening Address

Mr. Won Churll-Hee, President of the ICAO, opened the meeting with a short speech.

Mr. Won mentioned that there are a myriad of tasks for agricultural co-operatives to cope with challenges in the wake of rapidly changing environment, characterised by globalisation acceleration and transnational enterprise expansion. He added this would be good and enough reason why the agricultural co-operatives must be equipped with creative management and proactive attitudes.

Referring to 400 million member farmers represented and over 50 % of agricultural production and marketing channelled, Chairman went on to mention that agricultural co-operatives uphold an increasing role in this challenging world. He concluded the ICAO should be revitalised, charged with the historic mission of regenerating the agricultural co-operative movement. 

B.  Welcome Address by ICA President Mr. Roberto Rodrigues

      Mr. Roberto Rodrigues delivered his welcoming speech as invited by Mr. Won.

C.   Key-note Speech by Mr. Mark Ritchie, President of Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, USA

Mr. Mark Ritchie presented his paper on ?The World Trade Organisation and the Human Right to Food Security? with visual aid as a special guest speaker in the meeting.

Mr. Mark Ritchie firstly briefed the importance of agricultural issue in the WTO framework and then unsatisfactory nature of the final Agreement on Agriculture in the previous negotiation of WTO(Uruguay Round). As a result of this incompleteness, agricultural issue will be hot agenda at the next round negotiations, which will be initiated at the WTO Seattle Ministerial Meeting.

II.Statutory Session

A.  Secretary General's Report

Mr. Lee Shil-Kwan reports to the member representatives the activities initiated by ICAO since last GA in Manila in May 1998.

Membership: Four agricultural co-operative apex organisations and one international organisation were submitted their application to ICAO membership.  

Finances: There was a reserve fund of CHF 14,462.60 with a revenue of CHF 16,958 and expenses of CHF 2,495 during the year as of end of July 1999. In Balance Sheet closed by end of July 1999, CHF 56,134.56 was reserved.

B.  Approval of New Membership

Five membership applicants above were accepted without any debate.

C.  Introduction of Agricultural Co-operatives in Canada

The Secretary General of Co-operative Fédrée de Québec Mr. Clude Lafleur made a special report about the general aspect of the Canadian co-operative movement, highlighting the successful business performance of Co-operative Fédrée de Québec.

D.  Country Reports

Before the country reports, Hon. Jan Fencl, Minister of Agriculture of Czech Republic to make a presentation on his agricultural situation. He briefed current situation of Czech agriculture which is now undergone severe structural reform in order to meet the criterion need to be a EU member application. Another focus placed on co-operatives is to defend them from devastating invasion of transnational company.

Hon Jan Fencl said that he was not able to maintain ICAO Vice President due to his joining the cabinet of Czech Republic as Minister of Agriculture last year and expressed officially Mr. Hasle Nielson from Federation of Danish Co-operatives would be appropriate replacement of him.

Country report from Brazil, Denmark, Japan and Egypt were followed after Hon Jan Fencl briefing. Representing each region, Mr. Dejandir Dalpasquale (Organinzation of Co-operatives of Brazil-OCB), Mr. Hasle Nielson (FDC, Denmark), Mr. Kohashi (JA-Zenchu, Japan), and Mr. Mohamed Idris (Central Agricultural Co-operative Union -CACU, Egypt) made each report.

E.  Revision of the ICAO Rules

Mr. Won Churll-Hee asked Mr. Lee Shil-Kwan to explain major changes of new ICA Rules. Mr. Lee Shil-Kwan firstly talked about the several reasons we need to amend the Rules and provided in-depth explanation of item changed with a prepared table paper. Among them were to harmonise terminology discrepancies in the Rules and to respond drastically changing competitive environment around farming sector.

In Article 6.b.5, the last sentence should be clarified as follow: 'Re-election shall be permitted, but shall restrict the re-election of the same person to be not more than two terms.' 

        Participants approved draft version of ICA Rules.

F.  Election of Vice President

Mr. Hasle Nielson was unanimously welcomed to take Vice President in replacement of Hon Jan Fencl. For Asian region, the JA-Zenchu, Japan was requested to nominate Vice President from the organisation.

G.  Business Plan for 1999/2000

Mr. Lee Shil-Kwan was also invited to deliver an ICAO future plan.

ICAO/NACF Workshop in Seoul: The workshop was developed to provide a opportunity to share different agricultural co-operative experiences and a chance to observe unique agricultural co-operative model in Korea. With the theme of the Development of Agricultural Co-operative, the workshop was slated for right after the ICA Québec event during 13^th ~ 19^th September 1999. All the local cost was covered by NACF sponsorship.

Study Programme on Development of Agricultural Co-operative in Transitional Countries: six-month study programme will be started from September to next February. Main focus of study will be put on reviewing current status and helping find directions for the farmers coops development in transitional countries. For the purpose, Canadian Co-operative Association (CCA) from Canada accepted the proposal and dispatch a full time researcher to Secretariat stationed in NACF, Seoul during above period. CCA and NACF also share partly the cost of the programme.

Seminar on "the Position of Agricultural Co-operative on the WTO Agricultural Negotiation: As agricultural issue will be most essential part of the next round of world trade talks, the Seminar will provide the place for agricultural co-operative to share and express joint opinion during the WTO process. The Seminar will be held in conjunction with the General Assembly in the year 2000.

All participants support the activities. So the Seminar naturally will be included an agenda of next GA in Rio de Janeiro which was decided at following agenda 2.9.

H.  Adoption of ICAO Québec Statement on the Next WTO Agricultural Negotiation

As an important NGO in the field of the WTO framework, ICAO prepared a draft version of Statement on the Next WTO Agricultural Negotiation, but was not finalised at the meeting. There were arisen a number of different approach, including opinion from member organisation: JA-Zenchu, CEBECO-Handelstraad (The Netherland), and FDC(Denmark). Chairman Mr. Won Churll-Hee promised to send a revised version of Statement after collecting members' opinion, including the ones during the meeting. Final Statement will be available later on.

I.   Next Meeting

It was agreed that OCB, Brazil host the millennium GA on occasion of ICA Regional Assembly in Rio de Janeiro in the end of November, 2000 as Mr. Dejandir Dalpasquale proposal.

J.  Closing

Mr. Won Churll-Hee closed the meeting with thanks all participants for their kind attention.