Dr. Choomjet Karnjanakesorn, General Manager of APTERR Secretariat together with Mr. Akinori Ando, a Japanese Expert as well as the APTERR staff members had the opportunity to meet with representatives from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) consisting of Mr. Qingfeng Zhang, Senior Director of Agriculture, Food, Nature, and Rural Development, Ms. Yasmin Siddiqi, Director of Agriculture, Food, Nature, and Rural Development Sector Office, Mr. Navin Twarakavi, Senior Digital Agriculture Specialist, Mr. Shingo Kimura, Senior Natural Resources and Agriculture Specialist, Ms. Noriko Sato, Senior Natural Resources Specialist, and Mr. Kiyoshi Nakamitsu, Principal Urban and Social Sector Specialist, on 15 August 2023, at the ADB office in Manila, the Philippines.
The APTERR Secretariat and the ADB discussed the possibility of future cooperation.
Dr. Karnjanakesorn introduced a brief overview of APTERR including the APTERR mechanisms and its role in strengthening food security in the ASEAN Plus Three region. Both had a fruitful discussion on expressing their purpose and seeking possible cooperation to improve the APTERR mechanisms to be more effective as the APTERR has been already established for over 10 years.
The ADB is one of the key points to support the establishment of APTERR as a permanent organisation in 2010 and provided technical assistance to improve the APTERR mechanism. Furthermore, the Technical Working Meeting on Strengthening the Rice Reserve Implementation and the Subsidiary Regulations of the APTERR’ in 2016 was also funded by the ADB.
(Left to Right) Mr. Navin Twarakavi, Mr. Kiyoshi Nakamitsu, Mr. Shingo Kimura, Ms. Yasmin Siddiqi, Mr. Qingfeng Zhang, Dr. Choomjet Karnjanakesorn, Ms. Sita Kumpol, Mr. Akinori Ando, Ms. Bussapailyn Shimphalee, Ms. Jansinee Kankaew
