The Committee,

1. Takes note of the request of Viet Nam to transfer the element ‘Xoan singing of Phú Thọ Province, Viet Nam’ from the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity;
2. Further notes that this is the first time since the entry into force of the Convention that such a request was received;
3. Commends the State Party for its request to the Committee;
4. Recalls Articles 16, 17 and 29 of the Convention and Chapters I.1, I.2, I.7, I.8, I.11 and V.2 of the Operational Directives;
5. Considers that the Operational Directives need to be revised in order to establish clear procedures for the removal of an element from a List and the transfer from one list to the other;
6. Further considers, as it is the first time that such a request was received, that the request of Viet Nam merits an exceptional treatment and that the experience gained in the examination by the Committee can feed into the reflection on the possible proposal for revision of the Operational Directives;
7. Decides, on an exceptional basis and pending the adoption of relevant procedures by the General Assembly in 2018, that, if Viet Nam submits by the deadline of 31 March 2016 both its report on the status of the inscribed element ‘Xoan singing of Phú Thọ Province, Viet Nam’ on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding and a new nomination of the same element on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, the Committee will examine them concurrently at its twelfth session in 2017, above the adopted overall ceiling for the 2017 cycle, to take a decision on the requested transfer;
8. Further decides that the possible examination of the nomination of the element to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in the 2017 cycle will only take place should the Committee first decide, after examination of the report, on the removal of the element from the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding;
9. Further decides to add an item on the agenda of its next session to reflect on a possible proposal for the revision of the Operational Directives in order to deal with the removal of an element from a List and the transfer from one list to the other;
10. Decides to convene an open ended intergovernmental working group, to be held before the twelfth session of the Committee, to discuss draft operational directives on the procedure for removal of an element from a List and the transfer from one list to the other; this meeting will be organized on condition that voluntary supplementary contributions to the Intangible Cultural Heritage Fund are received in due course, and in any case not later than January 2017, in order to cover all of the costs of organizing the meeting and the costs of the participation of representatives of developing countries that are parties to the Convention, whether or not members of the Committee, but only for persons who are experts in intangible cultural heritage.