Mr Charest highlighted the importance attached by Canada to the protection of cultural diversity and expressed his appreciation for UNESCO’s efforts to prepare a draft Convention on the protection of the diversity of cultural contents and artistic expressions.

The Director-General paid tribute to the experts who had made considerable progress and reached agreement on a number of essential points, envisaging concrete possibilities for cooperation on this complex subject. Nevertheless, he added, a number of divergent views remained on important articles. Mr Matsuura said that the minutes of the second expert meeting would be sent to Member States and concerned organizations, such as WTO, WIPO and UNCTAD, in the near future, and reassured the Prime Minister that Member States would receive a preliminary text of the Draft Convention before mid-July 2004 with a view to its being finalized four months before the session of the General Conference in October 2005.

In closing, the Director-General thanked the Prime Minister for the support given by the Government of Quebec to the Montreal-based UNESCO Institute for Statistics.

Related theme: Cultural Diversity