On 3 June 2010, Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya presided over the opening ceremony of the seminar “Thailand and Neighbouring Countries: Development Cooperation for the Future” as well as the launching ceremony of “East Asia Watch” website at Narathip Auditorium, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In his opening address, Foreign Minister Kasit stressed Thailand’s role as “donor country” to provide assistance to its neighbouring countries, as one of the main issues of the Kingdom’s foreign policy. The assistance aimed to enhance development, reduce economic gap in the societies of the neighbouring countries, and also strengthen relationship between Thailand and foreign countries through development cooperation in various areas. At present, Thailand has implemented the said policy through four main governmental bodies, namely
International Institute for Trade and Development (ITD), Neighbouring Countries Economic Development Cooperation Agency (NEDA), and the Foreign Ministry’s Thailand International Development Cooperation Agency (TICA) and Department of Information. These agencies played significant role in providing knowledge on trade and development, soft loan, and education, public health and training cooperation. The cooperation also included people-to-people relations through cultural and public diplomacy.
The Foreign Minister underlined Thailand’s role in providing international cooperation under the United Nations’ framework, which included South-South cooperation between fellow developing countries, and trilateral cooperation between developed countries or international organizations as financial supporter, developing countries as technical assistant, and recipient countries. Thailand has provided development cooperation to both Asian and African countries such as Laos, Cambodia, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Ghana, Somalia, and Burundi. Currently, Thailand, as one of the seven nations proposing “health diplomacy” in the UN agenda, has addressed the importance of providing medical and health care assistance to other developing countries. The Foreign Minister also stated that the physical and cultural connectivity, including building the sense of unity between the peoples of donor and recipient countries is a key to the success of the development cooperation.
Foreign Minister Kasit took this opportunity to launch the website “East Asia Watch” (www.eastasiawatch.in.th) created by the East Asian Affairs Department. This website aimed to be a reliable source of general and analytical information regarding the Asian countries for better understanding of the public about Thailand’s neighbouring countries and also served as a forum for web-users to exchange their views.
For further information, please contact the Press Division, Department of Information, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tel.02-6435170, Fax.02-6435169, E-mail: div0704@mfa.go.th