Results to the local community

(Oita Godo Newspaper, August 10^th 2010, Morning Paper, Page 1)

 APEC, Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, which was held in Beppu from the 7 and 8 of August, discussed about small and medium size companies, the environmental friendly green technologies cooperation around the world. They are summarized and would be presented in the meetings of countries head in Yokohama in November. Supporting this event is Beppu and Oita, resulting in a fruitful trip for the participants of the international meeting, exchanging of information, contributing to the region.

The meeting consists of important people from the Asia pacific, aims to promote growth n the Asia Pacific as a whole, thinking of plans and carrying out the plans.

The theme of this meeting was "sustainable development", the production sector in Oita. They are thinking of stimulus to stimulate the economy.

In the prefecture economy world, cooperation between cities and organizations are required. Himeno Prefecture Chamber of commerce, said that the aid for small and medium size company is crucial, and that each country have to develop human resources, technological help is needed to be incorporated together.

The place that the meeting was held is in Beppu city which hosted the Asia water summit in 2007, having a large scale of international meetings, and received commendation of it.

Hamada Mayor said that through the water summit, we hope to attract more international events to Beppu. At the tourism aspect, each country have about 200 people who traveled to Beppu, and according to the tourism board, they are trying to do PR to appeal to countries in Asia.

Oita Prefecture has the largest international student ratio. Saying it to be a "international student Prefecture", many international students have volunteered to help out in this APEC meeting. Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University too played a part in this meeting; Matsuhara section head said that this meeting was a valuable experience for the students.    

Comments

I too participated in the APEC meeting and resumed the role as a liaison officer, it was great honor to serve the representatives of my country and I am able to communicate with representatives from other countries. I think that this is a good opportunity of students who would like to work for in an international place in future. But one thing that I thought was, our country future is decided by meetings, and I felt insecure. 

Tay Zhong Jie Edwin

Singapore

Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, APM 4