Welcome Remarks
By H.E. Dr. Khunying Kalaya Sophonpanich
Minister of Science and Technology
For the Visit of UK BBSRC Mission to Thailand and UK-Brazil-Thailand Joint Seminar on Agricultural Biotechnology
23 February, 2010 ; 18.00 hrs.
At Four Seasons Hotel, Bangkok
Your Excellency
Distinguished Guests
Colleagues and Friends:
Good evening to you all. On behalf of the Ministry of Science and Technology and the National I would like to extend to you all a very warm welcome.
I hope our visitors from Britain and Brazil have recovered from jet lags. These are long distances to travel, especially from Brazil, and I am grateful, that you have braved the torment of such long journey, to come to Thailand, to allow us to learn from your knowledge and experience.
I would like to thank the British government for bringing us together. This is part of the “UK-Thailand: Partners in Science”, a collaboration initiative that the Thai National Science and Technology Development Agency signed last September with Prof John Beddington, the UK’s Chief Scientific Adviser. He believed that Thailand and Brazil have much in common and could collaborate with each other to strengthen and develop our agriculture sectors. Subsequently we had a meeting with His Excellency the Minister of Science and Technology from Brazil in Kyoto and agreed to this trilateral seminar. I am pleased to meet distinguished scientists from Embrapa, whose outstanding reputation, are well known world wide, and I look forward, to working closely with you all. I am very pleased to meet Professor Janet Allen and the British scientists in her team. We share many things in common and I hope we can develop many worthwhile projects.
It is exciting and stimulating to learn of an expert's approach and thinking, especially from one who is from a different culture and another environment. The perception will be different and there will be surprises. Hopefully a few of the surprises will change our mindsets and thus, increase our knowledge. It will be exciting to test and apply the new insight.
I hope these few days of dialogues will change some of our previous belief and change what we plan to do next week and improve our results for our people.
So, I was therefore looking forward to this seminar and regret that I am not able to attend your three days sessions. There are so many distinguished scientists here from Britain and Brazil. There will be so much to learn. I believe someone predicted that the world scientific knowledge, will double every ten years, so there will be so much to learn, and to unlearn. It is ironic that I can fly to another country, and attend a seminar there, but I can not find the time to do so in Thailand. Perhaps, His Excellency the British Ambassador, can explain to you, the intricacies of Thai politics, and the reasons for my being so busy.
I am sure this trilateral meeting will result in many exciting projects and I look forward to learning about them and keeping track of them.
Already, I am pleased to see that over the past few months scientists in a number of agencies under my Ministry have increased their collaboration with British Scientists. I would like to express my appreciation to the British Embassy in Thailand, the British Council and the British High Commission in Singapore.
Finally I hope you will have a fruitful seminar and make many new friends. For those who have to fly back to your homeland I hope you will have safe journeys home and loved ones.
Thank you.
Last Updated on Friday, 22 August 2014 06:02