28 September 2016 – The ASEAN Committee in Cairo (ACC) and officials from the Cairo University officially inaugurated a section in the university’s Central Library dedicated to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its member states.
The ASEAN section currently houses some 550 books and other materials donated by the nine ASEAN Embassies in Cairo – Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. The collection includes materials about ASEAN as a regional bloc.
The National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP), and Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) provided the Philippines’ contributions to the library. The ASEAN-Philippines National Secretariat under the Department of Foreign Affairs contributed resource materials on ASEAN.
Ambassador Premjith Sadasivan of Singapore, the current Chair of the ACC, said the donation demonstrates the deepening ties between ASEAN and Egypt, and that “we are striving to facilitate more people-to-people interactions through an exchange of knowledge.”
He noted that Egypt had acceded to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, a core ASEAN treaty, at the sidelines of the 28th and 29th ASEAN Summits in Vientiane, Lao PDR earlier this month.
“This is the beginning of long-term cooperation where we can learn from each other for the benefit of our nations,” said Prof. Amr Amin Mohamed Adly, Vice President for Graduate Studies and Research of the Cairo University, who was on hand for the launch.
Founded in 1908, Cairo University is Egypt’s foremost public university. With over 200,000 university students and some 7,000 international students, it is among the leading educational and research institutions in the Middle East and North Africa. END.
