Regional Centre for Agricultural Engineering and Machinery Opens

Will work towards poverty reduction through shared food production technology

Bangkok (United Nations Information Services) - A new technological centre of excellence in agricultural engineering and machinery opened its doors today. Its mandate is to help reduce poverty across Asia and Pacific by enhancing technical cooperation among UNESCAP member and associate member countries.

"The Asian and Pacific Centre for Agricultural Engineering and Machinery (APCAEM) will enhance technical cooperation through the sharing and exchange of information, prototypes and technology," Mr. Kim Hak-Su, Executive Secretary of UNESCAP, said during today's inauguration ceremony in Beijing, China.

The Centre will also promote agricultural engineering and machinery as well as the region's agro-based biotechnologies.

Located in Beijing, and hosted by the Chinese Academy of Engineering, APCAEM is under the UNESCAP umbrella, while its institutional and operational costs are being met by the Government of China; the Government of Finland is also providing financial support.

"I am very hopeful that APCAEM will be developed into a centre of excellence and become a role model for other subsidiary bodies of UNESCAP," Mr. Kim said.

As a new subsidiary body of UNESCAP, the Centre's mandate is to contribute to poverty reduction in line with the Millennium Development Goals and the outcome of the recent World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, which call for the reduction of poverty through increased food availability and affordability and by the application of harvest and food technology and management, including agro-based biotechnology.

Creation of the new Centre was approved on 22 May 2002, during the UNESCAP 58th Commission Session, in Bangkok, Thailand. The substantive work if the Centre was previously carried out through the Regional Network for Agricultural Engineering and Machinery (RNAEM), a special project established in 1977.

-UNIS-

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