January 20, 2004

Mr. Fraser Reilly-King
Halifax Initiative
153 Chapel Street, Suite 104
Ottawa, Ontario
KIN 1H5

Dear Mr. Reilly-King:

I would like to thank you for your letter of November 20 regarding the OECD Common Approaches on Environment and Officially-Supported Export Credits and to take this opportunity to thank you for the comments you provided before the negotiation of the final text of the Common Approaches.

Your comments are always appreciated. We found them constructive and relevant, and they helped us prepare for the negotiations in Paris.

We are pleased that the Common Approaches were formally adopted by the OECD and that various enhancements strengthening the provisions in REV6 were agreed to. This constitutes an important milestone in our efforts to protect the environment and we believe that it will contribute to greater consistency among ECAs in dealing with the environmental impact of projects supported with official export credits.

While we are happy that progress was made in areas such as transparency, standards and disclosure, we do recognize that there remains room for further improvement. In this regard, and as we gain more experience with the implementation of the new Common Approaches, I foresee continuing cooperation among ECAs to ensure consistent application of higher standards in the review of the environmental risk of projects.

I thank you again for your contributions and I hope that the Halifax Initiative will continue to work with us on these issues.

Yours sincerely,

A. Ian Gillespie