Federation of Asian Chemical Societies (FACS)

  Last updated on 14 May, 2001      

What is FACS? A Brief History and A Personal Experience

Hitoshi Ohtaki, The President of FACS 1997-1999, Ritsumeikan University

3. The Role of FACS in the Asia and World

Asia is facing many problems in economy and politics, and chemists are directly or indirectly affected by these problems. Although we cannot save the difficult situations of individual countries at this moment, we can contribute to the resolution of the difficulties by promoting chemistry and chemical industries of Asia within a long sight. It is understood by almost all countries in the world that Asia has a very high potential in science and engineering. In fact, International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is paying very much attention to FACS, which is one of the Associated Organizations of IUPAC. Since IUPAC contains many European countries, the Federation of European Chemical Societies (FECS) has a closer connection with IUPAC than FACS has. Latin America has an organization called the Federation of Latin American Chemical Societies (Federation Latinoamericana de Asociaciones Quimica: FLAQ), in which Brazil, Argentina and Chile are playing the leading role. In Africa there is an organization of African Association for Pure and Applied Chemistry (AAPAC). AAPAC is not constructed by member countries in Africa but individual chemists are involved in the organization, as far as I understand. Among countries in Africa, only South Africa and Egypt are the members of IUPAC. Since last year IUPAC organizes a Presidents meeting of IUPAC, FECS. FACS, FLAQ, AAPAC, American Chemical Society (ACS) and Canadian Society of Chemistry (CSC) to exchange information of these bodies. Globalization is one of the most important issues of IUPAC.

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