Mr. NIU Genfu, Vice President of Chinese National Academy of Arts attended the opening session of the workshop. He highly praised UNESCO's remarkable achievements in safeguarding the intangible cultural heritage (ICH), and briefed on CRIHAP's related work in recent years.

Ms Akatsuki TAKAHSHI, Programme Specialist for Culture of UNESCO Office for the Pacific States, pointed out that the ICH in the South Pacific region is facing a challenge of sustainable development. It's urgent to help member states to strengthen their ICH safeguarding capacity by all kinds of measures, and to promote more member states in this region to ratify the Convention. Mr. Timothy CURTIS, Chief of Culture Unit of UNESCO Bangkok Office attended the workshop and stressed in his closing remark that the South Pacific countries should enhance cooperation and share experience in safeguarding the ICH, and he expressed the hope for having more countries ratify the Convention in the near future.

The workshop is the 6th training workshop organized by CRIHAP for the South Pacific region. Up to now, CRIHAP has held 11 training workshops in total, benefiting 24 countries and over 300 trainees.