Hector Fratty

from Geoff Draper, President of the International Automotive Lighting and Light Signalling Expert Group (GTB)
www.gtb-lighting.org

Coinciding with the first day of the DVN Shanghai Workshop it gives me enormous pleasure, as a member of the GTB Administrative Committee along with the Vice President Bart Terburg and the Executive Secretary Davide Puglisi, to announce that applications for membership of GTB from the expert associations of China and Taiwan have been accepted by the GTB General Assembly. GTB was honoured to be able to convene an extraordinary General Assembly at the UN Palais des Nations in Geneva on 09 April 2013 to consider and vote upon these important applications for membership which mean that GTB has 19 members. It is a huge achievement for these two new GTB members to establish unique associations to represent all the parties interested in contributing to the work of GTB.

Over the past five years, GTB has undergone a major restructure to enable it to be capable of truly representing the automotive lighting and light signalling interests of our international community. GTB is not solely focussed on the UN 1958 agreement and has identified international harmonisation of the technical requirements as a priority, irrespective of the politics of accession to the UN agreements. Since its establishment in 1952, GTB has been instrumental in the development of the 41 UN lighting and light signalling regulations and this contribution through GRE, the UN working party on lighting and light signalling, remains a prime focus. However GTB also acknowledges that much progress can be made to harmonise the various current technical requirements to reduce the difficulties and delays being experienced by the industry to introduce new technologies into vehicles. These new technologies offer major safety and environmental benefits whilst also acting as an important stimulation to the international automotive market.