The 46th Executive Committee meeting was held on February 22. In terms of report items, Associate Prof. IKENO Jun presented a report on the budget execution as usual. He listed the remaining amount of budget for each division, and stated that the budget execution was expected to be definitely completed by the end of February.

The first agenda item concerned progress on the publication of the Final Report of the Program. A number of faculty members have agreed to take part in writing the manuscripts, and we originally planned to complete the manuscripts and send them to the printer by the end of February. However, there are a few faculty members who left for overseas trips before submitting their manuscripts. The Executive Committee discussed what to do about this.

The second agenda item concerned the preparations for the Symposium: Frontiers of Area Studies: Creation of Wisdom, scheduled to be held on March 2 at the Science Council of Japan Hall. The symposium aims to forge a vision for future area studies, by reporting the fruits of the 21st Century COE Programs related to area studies that have been carried out by seven universities in Japan including Kyoto University. Nine people will attend from our Program, and Program Leader Prof. ICHIKAWA Mitsuo will present the report. There will also be displays of many Program-related publications, and poster presentations will be made. At this Executive Committee meeting we discussed how to divide responsibility for preparations for the Symposium. Information on the Symposium is available through the SCJ website（http://www.scj.go.jp/ja/event/index.html）as well as the website of the Center for Integrated Area Studies, Kyoto University, (http://www.cias.kyoto-u.ac.jp/index.php/news_detail/id/56) which serves as the secretariat of the Japan Consortium for Area Studies.

Finally, I reported on the progress of the editorial work on Asian and African Area Studies No. 6-2. As has been reported in several earlier issues of What’s New from the Secretariat, the coming issue of Asian and African Area Studies will consist of research outcomes of graduate students and young researchers who have academically grown greatly through their work with the COE Program. The issue will be a large one as far as academic journal go, running to over 400 pages with 22 papers. At present, the reading of the first proof has been finished. Though the schedule is fairly tight, the editorial work will continue with the aim to publish the journal at the end of March. If you are interested, please visit the Program Website, as the contents and preface, along with the cover page, will be uploaded in a couple of days. (Sugishima)