TFNet held its Board of Trustees meeting (BOT) on 17 July 2008, at the Century Park Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand, on 17 July 2008. The meeting was presided by the TFNet Chairman, Dato’ Dr. Zulkifli Idris, and attended by 9 members of the Board from the total of 13 members. Observers at the meeting included a representative of the Government of Syria, which is a new country member of TFNet and members of the secretariat.
The meeting commenced with remarks by the Chairman who emphasized the need for TFNet to expand its membership and to carry out more projects to benefit members. The Chairman also informed members that the Malaysian Government has approved the operational fund for the TFNet until 2010.
The meeting continued with a report on TFNet’s projects, activities and financial status for the last fiscal year by the CEO, Dr. Izham Ahmad.
Following the report by the CEO, members of the board gave suggestions and opinions on actions that could further enhance the role of TFNet as a major information source, contributor and project executioner for activities related to the global tropical fruit scenario. Some of the suggestions were :
1) That TFNet tailor its activities to assume a bigger role in the global context.
2) The involvement of members in consultation exercises in some of the projects undertaken by TFNet.
3) TFNet need to propose and undertake ‘bigger’ projects that have more impact on the recipients.
4) The enhancement of the TFNet webportal to include trade and promotion information and a weblog where certain topics on tropical fruits could be debated and deliberated.
Members of the board were then given a briefing on the new TFNet webportal which has just been launched. The project office intends to build up the webportal into the most comprehensive database on tropical fruit information.
Before closing the meeting, the Chairman presented the membership appointment certificate to the representative from the Syria, Mr. Mawya Al Jabbar.