New million-dollar Japanese Studies fund for NUS, thanks to Mitsui gift
 Professor Shih Choon Fong, NUS President (left) and Mr Gempachiro Aihara, Executive Vice President and Regional COO of Mitsui & Co., Ltd, at the cheque-presentation ceremony
Mitsui & Co., Ltd (Mitsui), a leading Japanese business, engineering and trading company, has made a $500,000 gift to the National University of Singapore (NUS) to set up the Mitsui Japanese Studies in Southeast Asia Endowment Fund. The gift will attract a dollar-for-dollar matching grant from the Singapore Government which, once received, will bring the endowment fund to S$1 million.
The Fund is aimed at building stronger ties between Japan and Southeast Asia by promoting the regional integration of Japanese studies. Specifically, the proceeds of the Fund will be used to:
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Support the exchange of scholars and students between NUS and other study centres in the region |
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Organize regional conferences on a regular basis |
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Support the Japanese Studies Association in Southeast Asia (JSA-ASEAN) and |
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Support publications on Japan in Southeast Asia. |
Mr Gempachiro Aihara, Mitsui’s Executive Vice President and Regional Chief Operating Officer, presented NUS President Professor Shih Choon Fong with the gift on 11 January 2007 in a cheque presentation ceremony at the university’s Kent Ridge campus.
This gift comes at a particularly significant time as Mitsui commemorates the first anniversary of establishing its Asian Business Unit Headquarters in Singapore and NUS’ Department of Japanese Studies marks its 25th.
Not the First Mitsui Gift to NUS
 The gift is not the first that Mitsui has made to support higher education at NUS. In 1991, the company made a generous gift of $500,000 to set up the Mitsui Scholarship to enable NUS students to study in Japan.
Over the years, 33 Japanese Studies Department students have benefited from this scholarship. One of them, Ms Carolyn Pang, said at the ceremony that she received the Mitsui Cultural Scholarship in 2003 and it made possible her first extended study at the Sendagaya Language Institute in Tokyo.
“In sponsoring my study in Tokyo, the Mitsui Corporation did more than strengthen the relationship between Japan and Singapore. The Mitsui Corporation was integral in helping to bridge various countries through Japan and in doing so, it extended the bridging of ties beyond Japan and Singapore to other countries as well,” she added.
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