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Minister Pichet with HE Dmitry Livanov, Russian minister of education and science.countries is one of the solutions. Our foreign partners come from around the world. For example, we work with Japanese automotive companies in Thailand a lot. We connect the factories with qualified Thai engineers, often from universities. We’re producing young engineers and train them to be accustomed to Japanese culture so they can work with Japanese companies in the future. We also connect the Japanese with Thai auto-part suppliers. For the UK, we work closely with them on a project called the Newton Fund. For Korea, we work with their Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning on start-ups and food development. Soon we will work with Germany as well.You recently visited Russia. What current and future collaborations are planned?I’ve been to Russia three times in this capacity. We have very good collaborations in a number of areas. First, start-up business development. We signed a letter of intent with Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology via the National Science and Technology Development Agency. We will also work in metrology, benchmarking our equipment to be accurate according to international standards. We want to work on photonicsin electronic engineering, nuclear application for peaceful and economic purposes, and space development. We have four to five projects on the agenda. We want to sign an MOU between our ministries this year.What’s your advice for the private sector, which at the moment largely relies on imported technology?We import too much foreign technology. We pay 160 billion baht per year in expenses including technical and royalty fees. The answer is to import only necessary technology and ensure the contract also includes transfer of technology. We need to include this clause in the contract and do it seriously. We need to start developing technology by conducting research. In- vesting money in research instead of buying is more sus- tainable in the long run.Read the online version of this article by scanning the QR codeElite+ 17