The 10th Cooperative Development of Operational Safety & Continuing Airworthiness Programme – South East Asia (COSCAP-SEA) Steering Committee Meeting, organized by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and hosted by the Civil Aviation Authority of Macao SAR (AACM), will be convened in Macao from 09 to 10 October 2008.

For the purpose of enhancing flight safety, an aviation safety association known as COSCAP is set up in each sub-region under the umbrella of ICAO’s Technical Cooperation Bureau to provide technical assistance on safety oversight to the civil aviation administrations in a sub-region. The programme is supervised by a steering committee comprising officials of the participating civil aviation administrations.

A meeting is held every year by the COSCAP-SEA Steering Committee to review the progress made towards achieving the programme objectives and devise strategies to assist members in complying with the ICAO requirements. Macao has taken part in the programme since 2000.

At present, other members of the COSCAP-SEA comprise Brunei, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Lao, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Vietnam.

The opening ceremony held this morning is officiated by Secretary for Transport and Public Works, Mr. Lau Si Io.

The 10th meeting attracts more than 50 representatives from the member states and ICAO to attend. The Federal Aviation Administration, the Civil Aviation Authority of France, the Investigation Bureau for Civil Aviation of France (BEA-France), the European Aviation Safety Agency, Boeing and COSCAP-North Asia also participate in the meeting as industry partners. In this meeting, the participants will review the COSCAP-SEA programme, discuss the current and forthcoming activities of the Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme as well as the update on the recent development concerning ICAO Safety Management System requirements and the implementation of the Global Aviation Safety Plan and so on.