Civil aviation is crucial to global sustainable development, ICAO’s Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu told Xinhua and UN Radio. This sector currently accounts for 63.5 million jobs globally and 3.5% of global gross domestic product. Moreover, traffic volume is expected to double by 2030. "With these numbers, you can imagine how important aviation is to the global economy," she said, noting that the agency supports the safe operation of 10,000 flights between its 191 member States each day. "We should, on the one hand, prepare our member states to be ready to meet this growth, and even to accommodate or stimulate this growth. On the other hand, we should make all the efforts to ensure safety, and mitigate and reduce environment impacts in order to give our next generations and our planet a more sustainable future." The interview took place following her meeting with the UN Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee, at which she presented ICAO’s work on security issues and urged States to collaborate more closely with UN agencies on counter terrorism initiatives. Read Xinhua’s report
here.