SEOUL, 3 March 2016 - Ambassador to Korea Raul S. Hernandez, serving as representative of the Philippines, which will be ASEAN Chair in 2017, was named the Vice Chair to 8th Annual Meeting of the ASEAN-Korean Centre (AKC) Council Directors (CD) held at Lotte Hotel on 18-19 February 2016 in Seoul.

In accordance to the decision made in the Inaugural Meeting of the Council Meeting in 2009, the Council elected Mr. Ekkaphab Phanthavong, stand-in for the Lao PDR's Council Director, as Chair. Last year's ASEAN Chair, Malaysia, was elected as rapporteur. The Meeting, attended annually by the Council Directors or their representatives from ASEAN Members States (AMS) and South Korea in Seoul every February, welcomed the presentation made by the AKC Secretariat highlighting the AKC's activities spread across 22 work plans in 2015. By the time its fiscal year ended on 29 February 2016, the AKC was expecting a budget surplus of 5 percent. The Council Directors also approved the budget for 2016, which is mainly provided by the Korean government. In order to raise its efficiency and effectiveness, the AKC has proposed the implementation starting this year of Key Performance Indicators (KPI), a tool which the Secretariat intends to adopt fully in 2017 to measure the success of its activities. The body agreed to convene its once-annual meeting on 16-17 February 2017. The delegation members were First Secretary and Consul General Roderico Atienza, the Embassy's representative to the AKC Executive Board (EB), his alternate, Third Secretary and Vice Consul Lyza Maria Viejo, PH Tourism Attache Ms. Maricon Ebron, PH Rep to the AKC Culture and Tourism Working Group (WG), and Trade Attache Emmanuel Ang, PH Rep to the Trade and Investment WG.