On 8 September 2023, Mr. Oba Yuichi, Deputy Chief of Mission and Minister, Permanent Representative to UNESCAP, the Embassy of Japan, paid a farewel call on Mrs. Ureerat Chareontoh, Director-General, Thailand International Cooperation Agency (TICA) at TICA.

Both sides discussed current development cooperation programmes between Thailand and Japan at the bilateral and trilateral level, which have yielded fruitful results in the recent years. The Japanese side commended Thailand’s active role in development cooperation within Mekong Sub-region, while the Thai side expressed appreciation to Japanese development cooperation contirbuted not only to development in Thailand but also in this Sub-region as a whole.

They also discussed the preparation of handover ceremony of the first batch of medical equipment under the 500 million Yen Japanese Grant Assistance for the Programme for COVID-19 Crisis Response Emergency Support and a dispatch of Thai volunteers to Japan under the Friends From Thailand (FFT) programme. As requested by the Japanese side, Director-General of TICA reaffirmed that the Thai side will dispatch the second batch of the FFT’s Thai volunteers to Yamanashi by this year.  In this regard, TICA will send representatives to attend the 2023 Global Festa in Japan this month, in which TICA will organise Thailand’s booth under the theme “Frineds From Thailand”, to dissiminate information on technical cooperation between Thailand and Japan.

Both sides exchanged views on global trend of international development cooperation. Director-General of TICA also inforned that in October 2023, Thailand together with OECD will co-organise a Workshop on development cooperation strategy planning and programming to enhance Thailand’s capacity on development cooperation and its ODA database.

On this occasion, Director-General of TICA expressed her appreciation for Mr. Oba Yuichi’s active contribution to the excellent relations and development cooperation between Thailand and Japan.