Intellectual exchanges and communications between universities of China and ASEAN would contribute to their mutual understanding and further cooperation, a Thai senior official said Friday in Bangkok.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the First ASEAN-China Rectors Conference, scheduled to be held from June 14 to 16 in Thailand's famous Chulalongkorn University, Suchitra Hiranprueck, director general of the Department for ASEAN Affairs, stressed that human resource cooperation between ASEAN and China would set up a base to develop cooperation in the fields of politics and economy.
At the fourth ASEAN-China summit meeting last November, leaders agreed to set human resource development (HRD) as one of the priority areas, she noted, adding that HRD is a key element in the implementation of other priority areas.
Rectors and vice-chancellors from 15 universities in ASEAN countries and 10 universities in China attended the meeting.
They pointed out in their speeches that as China had entered into the WTO and decision was made on establishing China-ASEAN Free Trade Zone by 2001, how to foster a large number of specialized personnel who have better understanding of each other' s social, cultural, political, economic and other knowledge would be crucial to the success.
Thus they hoped this meeting would be a good start to implement the ASEAN-China Academic Cooperation and Exchanges Program, which was approved by the two parties in 2001 and included rectors conference round table meetings, joint training and research activities as well as faculty exchanges.
"This rectors conference would lay the path and policy for the rest of the activities under the ASEAN-China Academic Cooperation and Exchanges Program, which would bring about the continual cooperation and perpetual partnership between the two regions," said Supachai Yavaprabhas, executive director of ASEAN University Network.
(People's Daily June 14, 2002)
