Mr Suriyan Vichitlekarn

Regional Project Director, Better Rice Initiative Asia, GIZ

Mr Suriyan Vichitlekarn is a dedicated professional in sustainable development in agriculture and food security in Southeast Asia. He is currently Manager of the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) Working Group on Agriculture (WGA) Secretariat based at the ADB Thailand Resident Mission in Bangkok. His key role and responsibility is to coordinate the planning and implementation of collaborative activities to achieve vision and goals as guided by the GMS Core Agriculture Support Program (CASP). Key initiatives include i) food safety and trade modernization, ii) climate friendly agriculture, iii) biomass and bioenergy management.

Before joining the GMS WGA Secretariat, he worked with the ASEAN Secretariat based in Jakarta, Indonesia for 5 years. At the ASEAN Secretariat, he was the Head of Agriculture Industries and Natural Resources Division. His main responsibility is to coordinate and facilitate the development and implementation of ASEAN policy and cooperation on food, agriculture and forestry sectors as well as cross-cutting issues related to food and nutrition security, sanitary & phytosanitary (SPS) measures, climate change adaptation and mitigation, etc.

Prior to the ASEAN Secretariat, he worked with the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center (SEAFDEC) based in Samutprakan and Bangkok for 18 years. At SEAFDEC, he held several positions including the Policy and Program Coordinator whose responsibility is to coordinate the organizational policy and program related to fisheries, aquaculture, fish trade, small-scale fisheries, fisheries management, post-harvest and processing, etc.

Mr. Suriyan is a graduate of Kasetsart University, Thailand in Marine Science from Faculty of Fisheries. He also studied Management of Agricultural Knowledge Systems (MAKS) at the Wageningen Agricultural University, the Netherlands.