G

adjah Mada Univeristy's (UGM) school of politics, in cooperation with the university's Institute of International Studies (IIS) and the Foreign Ministry, has established an ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Studies Center in the hope of encouraging academics to conduct research to help accelerate the forming of cohesive ASEAN communities.
'I hope the ASEAN Studies Center will be a good medium for improving people-to-people relationships among ASEAN member states,' UGM rector Pratikno said at the ASEAN Studies Center launch in Yogyakarta on Tuesday.
Also at the launch was the director general of ASEAN cooperation at the Foreign Ministry, I Gusti Agung Wesaka Puja, and the Japanese ambassador to ASEAN, Kimihiro Ishikane.
Puja praised the establishment of the ASEAN Studies Center, saying that UGM was the perfect place to foster various studies to enhance cooperation between ASEAN member countries.
'UGM has many faculties and professors who support the ideals,' Puja said.
He added that later on, the ASEAN Studies Center would be able to actively contribute to all efforts to maintain and improve political and economic stability in the region as well as in the field of sociocultural studies.
To date, ASEAN Studies Centers have been established in five state-owned universities, the four others being the University of Indonesia (UI) in Jakarta, Andalas University in Padang, Airlangga University in Surabaya and Hasanuddin University in Makassar.(dic)