BANGKOK, 17 April 2012 – The Ministry of Culture is steering its work towards the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by placing it as the top agenda for the fiscal year 2012 with the implementation of many cultural promotion projects.
Permanent Secretary for Culture Somchai Sianglai has spoken about the ministry’s preparations for the AEC in 2015. He said the ministry was preparing to draft a strategy for its AEC-related operations under a project to foster cultural and artistic cooperation with other ASEAN members. The project will seek to develop the capacity of cultural personnel as well as inform the general public of ASEAN.
The Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will coordinate on the AEC preparations, which will be submitted to the Cabinet for approval and ASEAN Secretary-General Dr. Surin Pitsuwan for acknowledgement.
Mr. Somchai said the Culture Ministry had also planned many other projects with cooperation from the ASEAN states. Examples of the projects are the Thai-ASEAN youth project, a project to promote cultures and arts of neighboring countries to Thai children, an art camp project and a project to formulate a master plan on ASEAN cultural cooperation. The permanent secretary said all the projects would help ASEAN citizens, especially children and adolescents, to know more about their ASEAN counterparts and learn about cultural diversity without borders.
