Good morning, Good Afternoon and Good Evening to you all.
It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to be “virtually” with you, even though I am not able to make it in person due to a conflict in my calendar.
I would have loved to be in Singapore with you all for the Seventh meeting of the WHO Tobacco Laboratory Network.
Over the years, the Network has contributed to shaping the global agenda on tobacco product testing, ranging from its work on the validation of methods for conventional tobacco filler and mainstream cigarette smoke.
Let me start by telling you a little bit about the WHO FCTC, for the benefit of those who are participating in the TobLabNet meeting for the first time. It is a global treaty negotiated under the auspices of WHO, to combat the tobacco epidemic.
Currently there are 182 Parties to the Convention, and its governing body, the Conference of the Parties (COP), which is comprised of all Parties, meets every two years to review the implementation of the Convention, taking the necessary decisions to promote effective implementation of the WHO FCTC.
Such decisions have included a number of testing related requests to TobLabNet, via WHO. In fact, many of the methods that have been published by WHO on cigarette content and emissions and smokeless tobacco content, to date, are as a direct result of requests made by Parties at its different sessions.
Therefore, TobLabNet has an important role to play in supporting implementation of Articles 9 and 10 of the WHO FCTC– the regulation of the contents of tobacco products (Article 9) and the regulation of tobacco product disclosures (Article 10)
Given the highly technical nature of these articles, the expertise of this network, especially in assisting capacity building efforts in countries to effectively regulate nicotine and tobacco products, becomes more important, as we move forward in supporting Parties towards full implementation of the WHO FCTC.
You, as laboratories, also have a crucial role to play in working very closely with your governments to support the monitoring of the products on your markets, as well as regulatory efforts to reduce the demand for tobacco through tobacco product testing.
Your deliberations on issues around testing, including the products that are newer on global markets, such as nicotine pouches, and electronic cigarettes, in terms of the development of methods to analyse flavours in these products are of great interest to the Convention Secretariat.
As you know, flavours are a key driving force for children and adolescents initiating the use of these products, as well as tobacco products. Therefore, such methods, if developed, will be useful to Parties and will contribute to informing policy.
Articles 9 and 10 of the WHO FCTC, complement other supply and demand reduction measures of the treaty to reduce the demand for tobacco. So, I very much look forward to the outcome of this meeting, which I am sure will inform WHO’s report to the 10th Session of the Conference of the Parties to the WHO, which will be held towards the end of next year.
Product regulation will be a key item on the agenda, given that there were five papers on product regulation to the 9th Session of COP, the discussions of which were deferred to COP10.
We will continue to work with experts within the network, through WHO, and also with your respective governments, to further reduce the demand for tobacco through effective product regulation.
And, in closing, the Convention Secretariat remains committed to supporting the Parties to the WHO FCTC in their efforts to attain the goal of providing the maximum protection of health to their citizens and to a world free of the tobacco epidemic.
I wish you a successful meeting.