The 33^rd Meeting of the ECO Regional Planning Council (RPC) was held in hybrid mode on January 16-19, 2023.

Dr. Amene Naseri, Coordinator of ECO-ABN, and Dr. Forough Ghasemi, Director of the International Scientific Cooperation Office of ABRII participated in this event. During the meeting, the sectoral committees discussed their specific areas and endorsed the ECO Work Programme and Calendar of Events for 2023.

In the sector of Agriculture and Industry, Dr. Amene Naseri presented the suggestion of ABRII regarding holding the 2^nd Expert Group Meeting of the ECO Agricultural Bio-Technology Network (ECO-ABN) in September 2023. Council took note of the proposal of the Islamic Republic of Iran for holding a Symposium on Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) Detection and Regulation preceded by the 2^nd Expert Group Meeting of ECO-ABN. Moreover, the Council welcomed the proposal of the ABRII for initiating a new project entitled “ECO Bio-Safety Capacity Building” (ECO-BCB) in the ECO Member States.