杨凌国际农业科技合作论坛开幕式致辞

梁达仁博士致辞

    Yangling Opening Speech

    Honourable Mr. Zhou Yuming, Deputy Secretary-General, People’s Government of Shaanxi Province; Honourable Ms. Zhu Jingzhi, Vice Governor, People’s Government of Shaanxi Province, Honourable Mr. Lu Ming, Deputy Director, China State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs, Honourable Prof. Sun Wuxue, President, Northwest A&F University

    Distinguished guests, my fellow Australian colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen

    It is my honour to say a few words at this very important 2007 Yangling International Agri-Science Forum. First of all, the Forum occurs at the time which marks the 35th Anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relationship between Australia and China. I am thus very honoured to be part of that celebration and am particularly pleased and honoured that my organisation CSIRO (the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) is one of the sponsors of the event, together with Austrade and the People’s Government of Shaanxi Province and the China State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs.

    I am also proud to point out that CSIRO has been collaborating with China in the last 32 years, details of which are in my talk later on today, and personally, I have visited Yangling 4 times in the last 22 years to facilitate the close collaboration between CSIRO and the Institute of Soil & Water Conservation in Yangling.

    I am also very pleased to see so many old friends today and am confident that this Forum will provide many opportunities to meet new friends, both from China and from other countries. I look forward to these opportunities.

    I am particularly excited about the possibility of welcoming students and researchers to visit CSIRO in the future. In 2005, CSIRO signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Chinese Ministry of Education. In 2007, we are hosting and jointly supervising more than 24 PhD students from Chinese universities in CSIRO laboratories. We are hoping to increase that number of PhD students and also to expand the scheme to include researchers as visiting scholars.

    Lastly, I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to the local organising committee for their great effort and the hospitality.

    I wish the Forum great success. Thank you.