Foremost, I wish to bid everyone a warm welcome and thank you for your participation in this meeting. As you are aware, HDUCIM is a Track One activity under the ambit of ARF. I sincerely hope that this meeting shall provide us with the opportunity for us as Heads of defence universities, colleges and institutions from the ARF participating countries to discuss regional security issues and ways to conduct research and educational exchanges that would contribute to the promotion of trust within the region as stipulated in the Terms of References of our meeting.

It is also my ardent hope that we are able to achive the objective of our meeting to discuss within the ARF in exchanging information on the academic orientations of our respective defence educational institutions. In doing so, it is hoped that we may learn from each other and, in turn, improve our own processes of our organisations.

I am looking forward to a fruitful interaction during the meeting.