Twenty-Eight OPCW Member States Have Paid Their Contributions to its 2001 Budget

16 January 2001

Twenty-eight Member States of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) have so far paid in full their financial contributions to its budget for the current financial year.

As of today, these Member States were:

Brunei Darussalam Liechtenstein

Bulgaria Federated States of Micronesia

Cameroon Pakistan

Canada Poland

Côte d’Ivoire Romania

Czech Republic Saint Lucia

Finland Saudi Arabia

Holy See South Africa

Iceland Sri Lanka

India Swaziland

Kuwait Turkey

Latvia United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Lesotho Uzbekistan

Malta Zimbabwe

While this is a welcome development, tTaken together, the contribution of these 28 Member States equals only 10.75% of the Organisation’s budget for 2001.

Annual contributions to the OPCW by each Member State are calculated primarily on the basis of the United Nations scale of assessment, which is adjusted to match the composition of the OPCW’s membership. In accordance with the Organisation’s financial regulations, Member States are obliged to pay their contributions to its budget by 1 January of each year.

The timely payment by Member States of their annual contributions is essential for the effective functioning of the OPCW, which is tasked, inter alia, with verifying the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

In this context, the Director‑General of the OPCW, Mr José M. Bustani, thanked the above‑mentioned Member States for their timely payments, and urgedexpressed his confidence that the other Member States wouldto soon follow suit as soon as possible.

The membership of the OPCW has grown from 129 Member States in January 2000 to 141 Member States in January 2001. As of today the OPCW had carried out more than 900 inspections of civilian and military facilities in 48 States Parties since the entry into force of the Convention on 29 April 1997.

01/2001