Dr. Choy Keen Meng and Professor Ichiro Sugimoto's co-authored paper titled "Opium consumption and living standards in Singapore, 1900 to 1939" has been published in the 'Journal of Southeast Asian Studies' (Note 1).

While research on opium in connection to living standards has been lacking, in this paper, the authors collected data from colonial-era British records and estimated the opium consumption in British Colonial Singapore from 1900 to 1939. The authors demonstrated that non-skilled laborers dependent on opium by including highly addictive opium as a necessary consumption item were consistently living in conditions of absolute poverty. Professor Sugimoto expressed his hope that this research could offer a new perspective on the social and economic history of Southeast Asia and colonial economic history.
 

(Note 1) 'Journal of Southeast Asian Studies' is one of the major academic sources for scholarly papers on Southeast Asia, covering a wide range of humanities and social sciences. It was first published in 1960 as the 'Journal of Southeast Asian History' and changed its name in 1970. It is published by Cambridge University Press.

Furthermore, "Evolution and Multidimensional Reflections of Malaysia's Look East Policy," edited by Associate Professor Nasrudin Md.Akhir, Dr. Mohd Ikbal, and Dr. Asmadi Hassan have been published by the Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (Note 2). Professor Sugimoto contributed a chapter titled "Enhancement of the Study Abroad Program from Japan to Malaysia: A Case Study." In this chapter, he discussed the various advantages that Malaysia possesses as an educational hub and explored the practical implementation of education programs using examples from the short-term study abroad program in the Faculty of International Liberal Arts. This book serves as an academic work that examines the Look East Policy, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2022, from multidimensional perspectives.

Professor Sugimoto expressed his gratitude for the opportunity to produce output alongside Associate Professor Nasrudin and Dr. Ikbal, both researchers at the Center for Malaysian Studies, which was designated as a key research center at Soka University this year. He stated, "I hope that we can continue to steadily promote numerous collaborative research projects using the Center for Malaysian Studies as a platform."

(Note 2) Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia was established in 1970 and is responsible for publishing academic books and journals.