ICAO’s Secretary General, Dr. Fang Liu, and the Secretary General of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Mr. Angel Gurria, discussed a variety of initiatives to support and highlight aviation’s contributions to socio-economic development during a bilateral meeting at the OECD’s headquarters in Paris on 28 October 2016.
With other senior officials in attendance, the two leaders reviewed international air connectivity’s contributions to national and global GDP and ICAO’s achievements in terms of reducing the sector’s impact on the environment, in particular through the basket of measures ICAO is implementing towards the achievement of carbon neutral growth. Other key discussion topics included aviation’s role in trade facilitation and expanded tourism and its objectives in terms of safety, security, and infrastructure investments.
Dr. Liu and Mr. Gurria agreed that more could be done to raise awareness of the importance of aviation within national economic developmental strategies, and joint projects discussed at the meeting included the possibility of introducing an OECD Report chapter on the contributions of ICAO and international civil aviation to sustainable socio-economic development.
