On Monday, 23rd February 2015 Department of American and South Pacific Affairs together with the Embassy of the United States of America in Bangkok held the 7th Meeting of the Thai-U.S. Creative Partnership Joint Steering Committee at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand. The Meeting was co-chaired by Mr. SongsakSaicheua, Director-General of the Department of American and South Pacific Affairs and Ms. Kristina Kvien, Acting Deputy Chief of Mission of the Embassy of the United States of America in Bangkok. Participants were comprised of representatives from various Thai public and private agencies as well as educational institutions.

 

The Meeting was organized to report 

            (1) past activities under the umbrella of the partnership in 2014. Each side had approximately 10 projects in areas of Clean Energy & Green Technology, Health & Medical Research, Art & Design, Film, Animation and Photography, IT and Entrepreneurship & SMEs 

            (2) coming projects in 2015, which 10 activities to be organized by the US side, and 5 activities including a design workshop and “Herbal products & Medical device” visit to the U.S. to be organized by the Thai side 

            (3) to submitnew projects of cooperation (17 proposals) from relevant Thai agencies and universities, which seek partnership from the US side.

 

The Meeting agreed to maintain 7 areas of cooperation, namely 

            1) Clean Energy & Green Technology 

            2) Food & Agro-technology 

            3) Health & Medical Research 

            4) Art & Design

            5) Film, Animation and Photography 

            6) Information and Communication Technology (ICT) 

            7) Entrepreneurship.

 

            It was agreed to change titles ofsome areas such as“Film, Animation and Photography”and “Entrepreneurship” to “Motion Pictures, Digital Content and Photography” and “Entrepreneurship & SMEs”, respectively in order to reflect the current trends. Both parties also agreed to consider the possibility of a joint cooperation on “Anti- digital piracy”, which was proposed by the National Federation of Motion Pictures and Contents Associations of Thailand, and acknowledged that this platform is another important pillar of the progressive Thai-U.S. relations. In addition, the Thai side informed that the Thai-U.S. Creative Partnership is an example model for Thailand to cooperate with other countries such as Australia and New Zealand.

 

            The Thai-U.S. Creative Partnership was first initiated at the 3rd Thai-U.S. Strategic Dialogue in July 2010. It was intended to be an unconventional way of cooperation which stressed on collaboration of all sectors; e.g. public sector, private sector, academic institutions and NGOs to promote creative industries in which Thailand has potential and the U.S. has expertise and technology. This could lead to an expansion of new markets, joint ventures, joint research and development, commercialization of research papers and human resource development.