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Luxembourg represented at the 30th meeting of the Board of Governors of ASEF
Dr. Jacques F. Poos, former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, participated, in his capacity as the Governor for Luxembourg, in the 30th meeting of the Board of Governors of the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), which took place on November 21 and 22 in Singapore, seat of the secretariat of ASEF. During the two-day meeting, Mr. Poos was assisted by Ambassador Marc Thill.
ASEF was created by the first ASEM (Asia-Europe Meeting) Summit of Heads of State and Government, which was held in 1996 in Bangkok. It aims at promoting greeter mutual understanding between Asia and Europe through intellectual, cultural and people-to-people exchanges.
Every second meeting, the Governors of ASEF are meeting outside of Singapore; Luxembourg was hosting its second meeting, back in 1997. Luxembourg is one of its major financial contributors and, as of the end of August 2013, it ranks sixth out of now 49 Member States and the European Union as far as its total contributions are concerned. During the 30th meeting of the Board, Mr. Poos pledged a contribution to the budget 2014 of ASEF equal to the contribution for 2013.
During the same meeting, the Executive Director of ASEF, Ambassador ZHANG Yan, presented an "action plan 2014 and beyond" for ASEF, which could form the basis for the report on "synergies between ASEF activities and ASEM" which the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of ASEM, at their 11th meeting in New Delhi on November 11 and 12, 2013, recommended to the Board of Governors and ASEF to present at the next Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) of ASEM, which will take place in Brussels on April 29 and 30, 2014. In November 2015, Luxembourg will host the 12th meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of ASEM (FMM12).
For more information about ASEF, see www.asef.org