Beijing - The 1^st National Coordinators Meeting of 2017 back to back with the 1^st Pre-meeting of Trade and Investment Committee was held on 15-16 March in Beijing, China, with participation of National Coordinators from Member States, and representatives from line ministries, embassies, research institutions and UNDP.

After the discussions on the Terms of Reference of Project Office (PO) and the draft Strategic Action Plan (SAP) for the Transition Period proposed by Russia, it is agreed that the Russian side will revise the ToR of PO based on all comments from participants, and the SAP will be circulated among committees for comments. Member states further reviewed the activities and achievements based on the SAP for 2012-2015 and reached consensus on submitting the review report to the CC meeting. Emphasis was put on the pending issues of the Constitutive Agreement, and the technical issues and other concerns will be listed for further consultations among members.

Delegates also reviewed the work of GTI since last NC meeting in November 2016 and the overall progress in selection of the Joint Research Projects by Research Institution Network (RIN) members, and decided to conduct “Promoting the Connectivity in GTI in Physical, Institutional and People-to-People Dimensions” as the first joint research project of RIN and to acquire the final approval at the forthcoming CC meeting. Member state further commented on the financial and HR issues.

At the end of the meeting, the Russian Federation as the chairing country introduced their blueprint plan of organizing the GTI session during the Annual Eastern Economic Forum and extended wishes on reaching fruitful results on the 17^th GTI Consultative Commission Meeting.