The second meeting of the Extracting Industry Transparency Initiative Board, engaged in Producing mineral resources is expected to be held in April-May, 2007. Shahmar Movsumov, Executive Director of SOFAZ (State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan), and the Head of the State Commission on EITI, informed Trend hat the location where the forthcoming meeting will be held is not determined yet. The first meeting was held at the UN Headquarters in New York.
During the first meeting, different issues concerning the activity of the Board were discussed. Taking into consideration the initiative of Norway Government, a decision on placing the Secretariat in Oslo was taken.
Members of the Board also discussed issues concerning the EITI countries observing the obligations they took upon themselves. During the discussions, Azerbaijan leading role in introducing EITI was marked again. It also was proposed to exclude those countries from the Initiative which did not observe their obligations before EITI.
The Board of EITI was founded in Oslo on October 16, 2006 to coordinate the further activity of the Initiative. Its main functions will be preparation of recommendations on the general development of EITI, its strategic directions, as well as ensuring the control over the efficiency of the introduction of EITI, and presentation of the recommendations in the next international conference
The EITI Board consist of five countries applying the Initiative: Azerbaijan, Guinea, Gabon, Kyrgyzia, and Nigeria, three countries supporting EITI USA, UK, and Germany, as well as representatives of five NGOs, five companies engaged in extraction, and one investment company.