Joint Press Release of the Twenty-Second Meeting of the ASEAN Committee on Science and Technology (COST), Kuala Lumpur, 21-24 March 1990

The Twenty Second Meeting of the ASEAN Committee on Science and Technology (COST) was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on 21-24 March 1990. The Meeting was officially opened by His Excellency Datuk Amar Stephen K.T. Yong, Minister of Science, Technology and the Environment Malaysia. The Meeting considered progress reports of on-going projects; assessed the development of cooperation programmes with ASEAN dialogue partners; and considered new project proposals and other relevant issues in the fields of science and technology. The Meeting was attended by delegates from Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The ASEAN Secretariat was also represented.
This is the first meeting chaired by Mr. Mohd. Noordin Hassan, Secretary-General of the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment since he assumed Chairmanship of COST in January 19910 following the ASEAN system of rotation.
This is the first time COST has met in its reorganised form with reports presented by its eight Sub-Committees as follows:
The Advisory Body for the ASEAN Science Fund also met for the first time to discuss measures as to how to get the dialogue partners to participate in the fund.
The fund has been recently established with a US$50,000.00 seed contribution from each ASEAN member country.
The Meeting reviewed regional cooperative research and development projects in food, non-conventional energy, meteorology and geophysics, marine sciences, biotechnology, microelectronics and materials science. It also discussed the project on the management of science and technology, as well as the continuing publication of the ASEAN Journal of Science and Technology for Development. New project proposals were also considered. ASEAN cooperative programme on science and technology with dialogue partners, namely Australia, Canada, the European Community, Japan, New Zealand, the United States and UNDP was also reviewed.
The Meeting also discussed activities relating to the 4th ASEAN Food Conference to be held in Jakarta in July 1991 and the Third ASEAN Science and Technology Week to be held in September 1992.
The next COST Meeting is scheduled for September 1990.
The Meeting was held in the traditional spirit of ASEAN cordiality an solidarity.