Deputy Prime Minister Supachai, President Tienchai, Ms. Katie McGinty, chairperson of the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.

It is a pleasure to join you here today to witness the signing of agreements that will establish the Greening of Industry Network in Asia and a formal relationship between Chulalongkorn University and the US-Asia Environmental Partnership (US-AEP). I think it is particularly appropriate that Chulalongkorn University�s Environmental Research Institute has been chosen as the site of the network�s Asian node.

I am well aware of the leading role that Chulalongkorn University plays in the intellectual life of the country and the region. The great innovator and modernizer King Rama V is remembered by the name this great university bears. I believe that what we are witnessing today reflects the some kind of vision into the future that His Majesty King Rama V Championed in his own time.

Environmental concerns are a real priority for countries all over the world. How we deal with them will have important implications for the economic and physical wellbeing of our children and our children�s children. Vice President Al Gore, himself a committed environmentalist and author on the subject, speaks of the challenge ahead. Let me quote from him:

"At the 1992 conference in Rio, the nations of the world pledged to tackle our most serious environmental threats. Unfortunately, while governments have become skilled at articulating the problems, we have not developed a comparable skill, as yet, in developing and implementing sustainable solutions. This challenge is at the outer boundary of what is possible for a civilized civilization to successfully resolve. Yet we must rise to the challenge. We must do a better job."

The United States takes the challenge of protecting our global environment seriously. Programs we have undertaken under the US-Asia Environmental Partnership reflect that commitment. The presence here today of President Clinton�s chief policy specialist on the environment, Ms. Katie McGinty, also signals our seriousness about doing a better job in working towards sustainable development in Asia. Likewise the presence of Deputy Prime Minister Supachai and many other high-level participants from other countries in the region shows that all our governments recognize that future economic growth must be environmentally sustainable.

While our governments are all committed to this common objective, we all understand that governments cannot do everything. Indeed it is the spirit and ingenuity of private business, the academic community, Non-governmental organizations and the public at large that are the real engine of economic, social and spiritual growth. Governments Must allow their people the freedom to pursue new ideas--new ways of thinking and doing things--in order to assist each nation to reach its true potential.

The most striking aspect of this conference and the networks being created by the agreements we sign here today is the effort of private industry and academia to reach out across borders to address common environmental problems. I am proud that the US government, though US-AEP, has played and important rile in the process, and pleased that so many other governments are represented here today.

Yet what we are inaugurating today is essentially a private sector process. It does not require vast inputs of government directions or funds, or even large amounts of private capital for that matter. It relies chiefly on new relationships within the private sector to exchange ideas and ways of doing business. We have come to discover that sometimes what you need for business innovation is not lots of capital, but just a friend who has a better idea.

That is what the Greening of Industry Network is all about: pooling the collective knowledge and experience of "friends" from industry around the world. With the establishment of the Asian Center here at Chulalongkorn University to complement the American Center at Clark University and the European one at Twente, we are adding the knowledge and experience of the world�s most populous region. This is a region that has experienced the most dynamic economic growth over the past decade, and one that, despite today�s troubles, will soon regain its economic dynamism.

Each of these agreements attempts to create new linkages. Each proposes to connect participants from the industrialized countries with counterparts in industrializing countries. Each calls for cooperation, and above all participation, among governmental agencies, the business community, multilateral institutions and NGOs. Each relies on cooperation inside of networks or associations. Above all, each relies on a common vision of technological change and environmental quality as two sides of the same coin- a coin to invest in a better quality of life.

Over the next two days, you will discuss the impact of Asia�s current economic crisis and the prospects of an environmentally sustainable recovery. To some, the prospect of any recovery now may seem impossibly distant, but I firmly believe that the courage that the Thai government and others in the region have shown in pursuing economic reform efforts will bear fruit and lead to more sustainable development. I think you will find there is much to be learned from discussing how different countries and industries have adapted to the current situation.

I realize the challenge suggested by these agreements and this conference are great. The application of policy and technology to achieve environmental improvement is complex--it is a process without magic bullets, one that no single participant can engineer, and one that every country, and, even, every company, must carry out without benefit of a universal model. Yet we cannot turn away from the task. The dangers posed by global climate change, by the discharge of poisonous chemicals in our air, soil, and water, and the threat to so many irreplaceable species are too great for us not to try.

Indeed, I believe that together, we have within our grasp the capacity to build a global community in which population is in better balance with resources, in which human health everywhere is more secure, in which the participation of people in the development process is a fact, and in which economic opportunity is more widespread. This is an attainable vision--but only if we work together. That is what this conference and this network are truly all about.