 and a very good morning to distinguished delegates and at the outset may I thank you Madam Chair for giving me this opportunity to speak at this stage. I have to leave Geneva shortly on mission so thank you for the indulgence of allowing me to speak at the start of the meeting to address a number of issues but in particular the presentation of the draft program budget for the 2018-2019 biennium and may I say Madam Chair how delighted we are to see you in the chair. So let me start before moving to the draft program and budget on the results so far in the current biennium. Recalling that we're now at 18 months into the current biennium of 19 of 2016-2017. So as you are aware the results of the first year were very good. We ended the year with an overall financial result of a surplus of 32 million Swiss francs having taken into account the IPSAS adjustments. That caused the net assets of the organization to rise to approximately 311 million Swiss francs and one of the pleasing things about that result is that it enabled us to increase the percentage of the liquid assets in the overall reserves and as you're aware there is a target that has been set by the member states to increase the proportion of the liquid assets in the reserves from 22% to 25%. So this was a very good result. The results of course are not just financial but they cover a number of matters and as you are aware there are program performance reports before this committee which go into those but we see that about 72% of the program performance indicator targets are well on track at the mid biennium stage. This year of course the results are very much provisional but what we can say is that we are well on track to repeat the performance of the first year of the biennium and so we would hope that all things being equal we would have a result in this year which is similar to the one in which we achieved last which we achieved last year. Let me turn then if I may to the draft program and budget for 2018-2019 and in financial terms as you have seen in terms of the big picture we are estimating that the revenue of the organization will rise by some 10.4%. That would take the overall revenue of the organization to 826 million Swiss francs so it would be the first time that in a biennium the organization achieves revenue over 800 million Swiss francs. As you know those estimates of revenue are based on the work of our chief economist's office in which they track historical and recent historical demand and also the projections of the IMF with respect to GDP in the countries with the heaviest filings with the organization. Over the course of the last four or five biennium the predictions or the estimates of the chief economist's office have been validated so we feel comfortable going forward on that basis and of course we adopt a conservative view of the projections which are done on a high case and a low case and a base case. So that is the situation for the revenue. In terms of expenditure we are proposing to you that expenditure be limited to an increase of 2.7% so that is below of course the estimated increase in revenue and we do that again on the basis of an endeavor to address those concerns that are most important to the member states and have been expressed by the member states. Significantly we would contain the rise in staff costs to 0.8% and that is a concern that has been expressed repeatedly in the meetings of the program and budget committee in previous years, the containment of staff costs and we think that we have succeeded in doing that in recent years and we propose to continue that in the new biennium. There are several things that we are proud of as a record in terms of management in the course of the last several years. The first of those is that we have been able to achieve our results without any fee increase now and going forward to the next biennium 2018-2019 it would be the fifth successive biennium without a fee increase and that compares extremely favorably with the record of national and regional intellectual property offices. We are again not proposing any new posts in the organization so I mentioned the objective of the containment of staff costs and here is again a concrete example of it and again it's the fifth successive biennium in which we have been able to not request new posts in the organization and this is a consequence of first of all the increased productivity that is brought about by our IT systems that underlie the global systems of the PCT, the Madrid, the Hague and other areas and it's brought about we believe by prudent management practices as well. In going forward I think a couple of items if I may mention besides the overall financial situation the first of those is that we are presenting a capital master plan a multi-year projection of the capital costs that the organization will incur in the coming period of 10 years but of course it's limited to a specific request for the next biennium of 2018-2019. The main area is covered by what we believe to be the coming capital expenditure requirements safety and security first of all both physical security and safety and cyber security so these are items in which we believe additional investment is required we have been undertaking that additional investment and it is proposed to continue done that track to ensure the safety physical safety first of all of the staff and all delegations and all visitors to the organization but also the security of our information technology systems which as I have already mentioned underlie the good performance in our global IP systems. The second area is investment in our IT platforms themselves so we have been able to achieve considerable productivity gains as a consequence of our IT platforms however they as you know require constant renewal and at the moment we have quite a large number of projects underway in this area within the secretariat so there is the continuing improvement of the EPCT environment the electronic environment for in which the PCT operates there is a proposed renewal of the IT environment for the Madrid system and for the Hague system as well and we are also exploring the extent to which synergies may be obtained through a single global platform for all of our services all of our global systems the PCT Madrid and the Hague and that proceeds along lines where we wish to present to users of our systems who are commonly use all of our systems as opposed to just one single system a seamless user experience to the extent that this is possible. We also I have mentioned the investment in cyber security we're also placing emphasis on our IT platforms which enable us to improve and contribute to sustainable development programs so I mentioned here our IPAS operating system intellectual property automation system which is deployed in over 80 developing countries and transition economies across the world which is a very popular program and the demand is extremely high and it requires again continuing investment. I would mention also our technology and information support centers in this regard another area of investment which has a direct impact on our development program. Perhaps a little footnote if I may the organization was able to achieve a very good outcome with the use of deep neural machine learning for translation. This was reported earlier this year it's the first application that we have of artificial intelligence it has produced extremely good results so compare favorably with all systems any other available systems throughout the world and we believe that now we're on the threshold of more significant artificial intelligence applications within the administration. You will see for example that we propose exploring the development of a digital tutor in the academy in terms of human capacity building as you are aware some 60,000 students undertake our distance learning programs every year and we feel that the the preliminary results in this area obtained elsewhere have been very promising and we feel this is an area we should explore at this stage as well. Let me go back to away from the IT investments foreseen in the capital master plan and say that the third area besides safety and security IT platforms the third area of major concern for capital expenditure is the maintenance of the life cycle of our buildings in such a way as to avoid large one-off expenditure requirements for renovation so maintenance of our campus is an important item going forward which will enable us we believe to save significant amounts in the future. Moving away from the capital master plan if I may I would like to say a word on our long-term liabilities of which the most significant is the after-service health insurance item that has been a subject of discussion in this committee in previous years and earlier in consultations let me just say that we have been funding this liability we the funding runs at around about 60 percent at this stage it is an item in which we are participating in a system-wide exercise that is being undertaken in the finance and budget network and in the high level committee on management those exercises in those two committees are still in progress no recommendations or decisions have emerged from those processes and those exercises but I wish to assure you that we are participating fully watching this very carefully and will report the results and proposals for any appropriate action at the requisite time in terms of I have two other items I'm taking some time and I apologize for that I have two other items that I should like to cover very briefly if I may one is general program items so on general program items I'm not going to go into any detail you'll have the opportunity to meet with each of the program managers and to go into the details but I would like to say that we have taken care to ensure that these sustainable development goals and the development agenda are guiding principles for the development of the program and these are reflected in the results framework that is before you I would also signal that of course the member states have been discussing the question of the identification of external officers one for the current biennium and up to three for the next biennium we're aware that as reported to us at this stage no agreement has been reached from a budgetary point of view of course this is relatively straightforward we have made provision for the four officers from a budgetary point of view it's a question now of the member states identifying which are the four officers with which you would like to go forward my last point then would be to mention the decision recent decision of the international civil service commission to adjust the post multiplier for Geneva downwards by some 7.7 percent this as many of you are aware has been the subject of widespread discussion particularly in Geneva which is the duty station affected by that particular decision as you are aware the Geneva based agencies have undertaken a collective exercise of due diligence with respect to the decision of the ICSC in going in assessing the question of the application of that decision that exercise of due diligence is something that is mandated in our understanding by the jurisprudence of the ILO tribunal that councils that executive heads should not blindly apply the decisions of the ICSC but have a duty of due diligence to ensure that the decision is taken upon correct grounds as I said a collective exercise has been undertaken by all of the agencies and a submission has been made by all of the Geneva based agencies to the ICSC which meets in Vienna next week next week I'm not mistaken this week this week sorry this week and we'll be considering this item most likely on Thursday and Friday now the collective review that has been undertaken has indicated has revealed what we believe to be a number of significant flaws in both the methodology and the application of the methodology as well as data collection in the which underlie and delay the ICSC decision so we are waiting to see whether the meeting of the ICSC and we have of course been in constant dialogue with the ICSC about these matters we are waiting to see whether the meeting of the ICSC confirms its decision modifies its decision or does what has been suggested to them redo their survey and apply the methodology in what we would believe to be a correct manner now some of you are asking what the impact of the decision that will be made by the ICSC would be and since there is a certain amount of uncertainty in respect of that decision because of what we believe after an extremely thorough exercise are significant methodological flaws because of that what we would suggest is we give you the amount that would be of the proposed expenditure that would be in question and that amount is 183 million Swiss francs which represents the salary amount of the P, D and E categories of staff who would be affected by the decision thereafter you can apply simply 7.7% to that 183 or you can apply 5% or 10% or 2% as you might see and you will have the result of what the impact of the decision or any modification of that decision would be so Madam Chair thank you very much once again for the opportunity to say these words at the outset and I wish you very successful deliberations