29 December 2014 – Philippine Ambassador to Mexico Catalino R. Dilem, Jr. participated in the turn-over ceremony of the chairmanship of the ASEAN Committee in Mexico City (ACMC) on November 14.

The ACMC is composed of the following resident Ambassadors to Mexico and their respective embassies: Indonesian Ambassador Hamdani Djafar; Malaysian Ambassador Dato’ Jamaiyah M. Yusof; Philippine Ambassador Catalino R. Dilem, Jr.; Thai Ambassador Chirachai Punkrasin; and Vietnamese Ambassador Le Linh Lan. The ACMC Chairmanship rotates through the members in alphabetical order every six months.

The ceremony saw the outgoing chair, Indonesian Ambassador Hamdani Djafar, turn over the chairmanship to Malaysian Ambassador Dato’ Jamaiyah M. Yusof. Since Ambassador Djafar was also concluding his tour of duty as Indonesian Ambassador to Mexico, the ACMC presented him with a farewell gift as a token of their deep appreciation for his friendship and effective chairmanship.

ACMC members work together to promote awareness of ASEAN and its individual member countries, and seek to increase understanding and cooperation between the citizens of Mexico and ASEAN, particularly in the areas of trade and investment, political cooperation, culture and tradition, and people-to-people contact.

The ACMC accomplished several activities in the second half of 2014 that promoted ASEAN, such as the official ACMC visit to the Mexican state of Sonora; the conduct of radio interviews featuring each of the individual ACMC Ambassadors in October and November 2014; and the recently-concluded ASEAN Bazaar held on November 22. END