Mr. Chairman,

1. I have the honor to speak on behalf of the Group pf 77 and China on agenda item 121, Pattern of Conferences.

2. At the outset, the Group would like to thank Mr. Xuesong Ma, Officer-in-Charge, Central Planning and Coordination Service, Department for General Assembly and Conference Management, for introducing the Secretary-General's report entitled "Action taken to improve the timely submission of documents for the Fifth Committee", as well as the Chairperson of the ACABQ, Ms. Susan McLurg, for introducing the Advisory Committee's report.

3. The Group would like to reiterate the great importance of the timely issuance of documents in the six official languages, which has a direct impact on the efficiency of the work done by the various United Nations bodies. The late submission, processing and issuance of documents in all six official languages has been a long-standing problem that   the Fifth Committee has had to put up with. In this connection, the Group had welcomed the proposal to convene an Interdepartmental task force within the Secretariat to discuss that problem.

4. The Group recognizes the work done thus far by the task force in positively addressing the problem of issuance of documents for the Fifth Committee. The Group fully supports the institutionalization of the task force as a standing mechanism to handle the documentation for the Fifth Committee at its subsequent sessions. It expects the Department for General Assembly and Conference Management, the chair of the task force, to continue to shepherd other Secretariat entities in the right direction and to report on the status of documentation any time it is called upon to do so by the Committee on Conferences.

5. The Group views the task force as one component of a multipronged approach to finding a solution to the perennial difficulties of late issuance of documents for the Fifth Committee.

        I thank you