Bangkok, April 21 (NNN-United Nations Information Services) More than 40 experts from nine member countries of the United Nations Asian and Pacific Centre for Agricultural Engineering and Machinery (APCAEM) will gather in Beijing, China for the International Seminar on Restructuring and Strengthening

Research and Development (R&D) for Agricultural Engineering, from 27 to 28 April 2007.

The Seminar will provide the opportunity for APCAEM to present its major findings and studies and recommend effective policies and action plans for environmentally-sustainable and commercially-viable R&D in agricultural engineering and technology.

Experts from the Ministry of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Institutes and Academia, Agricultural Machinery Associations and the Private Sector, will review the current status of R&D on Agricultural Engineering in the region, followed by country paper presentations.

The concluding session of the Seminar will focus on policy recommendations, strategy and programme formulations to enable effective delivery of R&D services in rural development by the agricultural engineering and technology institutions of the public sector.

The Seminar is being jointly organized by the China Association of Agricultural Machinery Manufacturers (CAAMM), the China Academy of Agricultural Engineering (CAAE), the China Agricultural University (CAU), the German Agricultural Society (DLG), the Deutsche Messe Ag (DMAG), and the Hannover Fairs Shanghai Ltd. (HFS).

The Seminar will serve as an important venue for presenting the evolving trends on the role and function of the public sector-led R&D; and how the policy and programme shifts could enable the R&D institutions on agricultural engineering to become more client-centered and sustainable in the long run,¡± according to Mr. Joong-Wan Cho, Senior Economic Affairs Officer and Officer-in-Charge of APCAEM said

Participants will also visit the AgriChina 2007, an agricultural machinery
exhibition, organized 11by the German Agricultural Society (DLG) and the Hannover Fair Ltd. DLG representatives will also attend the seminar.

APCAEM is a subsidiary body of the United Nations Economic and Social
Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). The Centre¡¯s mission is to assist member countries in achieving their Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) through capacity building/training, analytical and normative policy research, agro-technology transfer and facilitation, and agricultural information and knowledge networking.