“The emergence of Asia is of global significance. Getting EU relations right with this diverse and dynamic region is one of the major challenges facing Europe”. Thus begins the overview of the section of the European Commission’s web portal dedicated to the EU’s relations with Asia.

This section is developed by the Directorate General External Relations of the European Commission and provides a large amount of information on past and present initiatives to strengthen relations between the EU and Asian countries.

Other substantial information can be found on the sections developed by:
• Directorate General Trade, particularly on activities developed in the framework of the ASEM (Asia-Europe Meeting) informal process of dialogue and cooperation,
• Directorate General Research, particularly on INCO activities, related to the development of international S&T cooperation.

These initiatives have resulted in particular in an important development, in the past years, of S&T cooperation between European and Asian organisations in the ICT area, namely in the framework of EU-funded programmes.

Under the FP6 IST programme, Asia has thus become the first region, in terms of participation of third country organisations (see graph below). It is expected that the participation of Asian organisations in the FP7 ICT Theme will be also very high.

Detailed information on FP7 projects in the ICT field, with the participation of Asian organisations, can be found on the CORDIS website.