The month of December saw two more European Higher Education Fairs (EHEFs) staged, this time in Viet Nam. The EHEFs are financed by the European Commission’s Asia Link Programme and organized by the PEER Consortium, consisting of ACA members CampusFrance, DAAD, NUFFIC and British Council, but they are open to all ACA members, to other national marketing bodies, and, most important, to Europe’s higher education institutions. Earlier EHEFs were staged in Thailand, India, Malaysia and China. After the Vietnamese fairs – organised in Ha Noi and Ho Chi Min City between 8 and 12 December – two more events are scheduled to be held, in the Philippines and in Indonesia in 2008.

Again, these marketing events created much attention. 21 European countries were represented with a total of 101 booths in Ha Noi, and 18 countries were present with 77 booths in Ho Chi Min City. There were 3,450 visitors in Hanoi alone. As is already a tradition, the Vietnamese EHEF was accompanied by a one-day high-level symposium on higher education links between Europe and the host country. The Vietnamese symposium drew about 250 participants and featured important speakers such as Koos Ricelle, the Director General of the EuropeAid Cooperation Office of the European Commission, Vincent Piket, of the same Commission Service, and André Siganos, Director General of CampusFrance. ACA Director Bernd Wächter gave two speeches at the seminar.

EHEFs