Chaired by H.E. U Thaung, Minister of Science and Technology of the Union of Myanmar, the ASEAN S&T Ministers convened their 12th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Science and Technology (AMMST) on 16-17 November 2007 in Mandalay, Myanmar. The S&T Ministers reviewed the progress of S&T cooperation in ASEAN and exchanged views on a number of important issues, including the challenges ASEAN is currently facing.

As some ASEAN countries (e.g. Indonesia, Thailand and Viet Nam) have already initiated preparations to build nuclear power plants to produce electricity as part of their long term plans to cope with the energy demands, the Ministers were of the view that it is important for the S&T sector to play a role to support the initiatives. In this regard, the Ministers agreed to establish an ad-hoc Technical Working Group (TWG) and to designate Indonesia and Viet Nam as the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Ad-hoc TWG. Each ASEAN country shall assign experts as members of the Ad-hoc Working Group. Further, the S&T Ministers expressed their support to establish direct interfacing between COST and SOME by having a COST representation in the Nuclear Energy Safety Sub-Sector Network (NES-SSN) which has been established by the Senior Officials Meeting on Energy (SOME).

To help address mitigate the adverse impacts of climate changes and global warming the S&T Ministers also recommended that the Committee on Science and Technology (COST), through its Sub-Committees such as the Sub-Committee on Meteorology and Geophysics (SCMG), take and a lead role to implement relevant joint cooperation activities. The Ministers suggested that the Declaration on Climate Change, Energy and the Environment to be issued at the Third East Asia Summit (EAS) in Singapore on 21 November 2007, the outcomes of the 13th Session of Conference of Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention and Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 3rd Meeting of Parties (MOP) to the Kyoto Protocol in Bali, Indonesia, on 13-14 December 2007, should guide the implementation of further activities. To monitor the progress of activities, the Ministers also agreed to include the issue on climate change as one of the topics for discussion at the 5th Informal AMMST (IAMMST) to be held in July 2009 in Manila.

To strengthen ASEAN S&T cooperation with its Dialogue Partners, the Ministers support the initiative to establish the ASEAN-US S&T Agreement. They requested Member Countries to expedite the necessary review process on the draft Agreement as soon as possible to allow the signing of the Agreement to take place in between February and April 2008. The Ministers also agreed to convene an informal meeting between the ASEAN S&T Ministers and their counterparts from six ASEAN Dialogue Partners (Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and Republic of Korea) back-to-back with the 5th Informal AMMST scheduled to be held in Philippines in July 2008.

Realising the importance of effective coordination and consultations among the S&T Ministers and with the S&T Senior Officials, and between the AMMST and other sectoral ministerial bodies in support of the various initiatives and decisions made by the ASEAN Leaders, such as the ASEAN Charter and the building processes of ASEAN Community, the Ministers agreed to formalise the chairmanship of the AMMST with one year term covering the period between two scheduled Ministerial Meetings and designate Myanmar, the host of the 12th AMMST, as Chairman of the AMMST, effective immediately, until the convening of the 5th Informal AMMST in July 2008 . The Philippines, which will host the 5th Informal AMMST, shall be the Vice Chairman. Further, the chairmanship of the AMMST and COST need to be syncronised by having the two bodies chaired by the same country. In this regard, the Meeting agreed to shorten the term of Brunei Darussalam, the current Chairman of COST, to less than 3 years, and that the chairmanship shall rotate to the Philippines, the host of the 5th IAMMST, in July 2008. Subsequently, the cycle of the COST chairmansip will follow that of the AMMST in alphabetical order.

The ASEAN S&T Senior Officials also convened their meeting back-to-back with the 12th AMMST (DT).

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