The Fifth APRU (Association of the Pacific Rim Universities) Distance Learning and the Internet Conference 2004 was held in TsinghuaUniversity from October 11 to October13. Tsinghua President Gu Binglin and Dr. Lawrence LOH, Secretary General of APRU, both gave speeches at the ceremony held on October 12.

The conference was hosted by School of Continuing Education，Tsinghua University. Experts in distance learning from all over the world, especially from the Pacific Rim, participated in the conference. The theme of the meeting was “Distance Learning—Benefiting All.”

The Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU) is a consortium of 36 leading universities from 16 economies in the Pacific Rim. Formed in 1997, it aims to foster cooperation in education, research and enterprise thereby contributing to the economic, scientific and cultural advancement of Pacific Rim economies. TsinghuaUniversity, PekingUniversity, University of Science and Technology of China, FudanUniversity, and ZhejiangUniversity are all members of APRU.

Reported by Li Han