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

5. Concluding Remarks

FACS must grow up soundly. From 1999 we have new members from Russia and Mongolia and the number of the member societies becomes 26. The area covered by FACS becomes extensively large by including the two countries. On the other hand, FACS has many developing countries, whose chemical societies are rather small. IUPAC supports international conferences organized by developing countries (the organization must be done by the IUPAC Member Countries) by providing US$10,000 to each conference. It may be a good opportunity to have international chemical conferences in Asia to increase activities of our member societies. Activities of FACS should be widely open to the whole people of Asia and to the world. Handing over the reins of the officers by arrangement to one of one's own country colleagues should be avoided as much as possible. Interconnection with other federations and organizations should be much more enhanced. In 2001 IUPAC and FACS will have a joint conference called "Word Chemistry Congress 2001" in Brisbane, Australia, and this occasion may be a good opportunity to strengthen the tie between IUPAC and FACS and it may make FACS more global.

The Organization for the Development of Chemistry and Chemical Technology in Asia (ODCA) proposed at the Asian Conference on Scientific Cooperation (ACSC) in 1996 has a good foresight of the establishment in the near future. We believe that ODCA will have a close connection with FACS in various ways. Financial supports for the fundamental and application researches of chemistry and chemical engineering in Asia can be expected through ODCA. The future of FACS is very bright. I hope that FACS will be managed very soundly on the basis of high scientific standard. We spent twenty-one years after establishment, and will enter the new century. We should now a new scope of FACS towards the coming millennium.

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