Address by Dr Charles KECSKEMETI, Secretary General of ICA

Dear colleagues

Ladies and Gentlemen:

EASTICA was born a little more than 2 years ago. The establishment of EASTICA was a great moment in the history of the International Council on Archives. With this 10^th Branch, created 25 years after the inauguration of the first Branch in Southeast Asia, ICA's regional network has been completed.

In two years, EASTICA carried out an impressive programmes, thanks to the dedication and dynamism of its leadership. On behalf of ICA, I should like to extend our appreciation to the Chairman and Executive Board of EASTICA for the results achieved.

I should like to add our special gratitude to the Chinese archival authorities and community for the paramount decisive role they played in organizing EASTICA and in implementing its professional programme.

From 1996 onwards, with the XIII^th International Congress on Archives to be held in Beijing in some 9 months, Asia will become the centre of archival life.

In this new situation, EASTICA may and should dare to undertake ambitious projects to serve its constituency.

This first task seems trivial, but it is essential. It would consist in carrying out a survey on the situation of the archives in the EASTICA countries. The report which will be drawn up, will show how contrasted archival situations may exist within one geographical region and thus will serve as the bans for developing an EASTICA strategy and for selecting EASTICA priorities.

The second task more difficult, it perhaps the most appealing and the most significant from an international point of view. It would consist in investigation the history of archives in East Asia. The archival profession, whose main daily duty is to serve historical research should use more intensively its scholarly skill to look into its own history.

I was authorised by Mr Zheng Hang-Sheng, Vice President of Renmin University of China to tell you, that, should the 2^nd General Conference of EASTICA approve this research project, it may count on the active cooperation of the Archives College of this University.

Finally the third task is to address in a systematic way the issue of basic and continued archival training in the region, and to unite efforts for achieving rapid progress in this field.

With the successful implementation of these three tasks, the survey, the archival history research programme and the systematic planning of training for the archives of the 21^st century, EASTICA will become a major instrument for building up archival modernity in East Asia.

The International Council on Archives would be proud to participate in these efforts. East Asia, the oldest world is suddenly becoming the newest world. Archives in East Asia should progress at the same pace as industry and banking, education and health. The challenge sounds frightening, but it must be met. The East Asian nations must keep the memory of their past and the memory of the present for the generations to come.

On behalf of ICA, I should like to address our heartfelt thanks to the government authorities, the Cultural Institute and the Historical Archives of Macao for extending hospitality to the 2^nd General Conference of EASTICA and for securing such a splendid organisation for the world.

Here I have to add my personal thanks to my friend (for some 20 years now) Mr Isau Santos, a great archivist and a distinguished servant of his country. I am glad, Isau, that we could at last meet in Macao.

I feel privileged to convey to the Macao authorities to EASTICA and to all from China, Hong Kong, Japan, the DPR of Korea, the R of Korea, Macao and Mongolia its members the greetings of M Jean Pierre Wallot, President of the International Council on Archives, and his best wishes for the success of this conference.