(VOVworld)- Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung will attend the seventh Cambodia-Laos-Myanmar-Vietnam (CLMV) Summit and the sixth Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy Summit (ACMECS) in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar on Monday and Tuesday. The PM’s participation at the events demonstrates Vietnam’s determination to strengthen cooperation in trade, investment, and human resources with regional neighbors.
There is a big difference in GDP between the 6 older ASEAN members - Indonesia, Brunei, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines, and the 4 newer members - Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. Market scale and structures of economic sectors also differ creating big development gaps between ASEAN members. This poses a major problem for the bloc, which plans to establish an economic community by the end of this year. Promoting a cooperation mechanism between Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam is a move to boost the integration of the Mekong Sub-region and ASEAN.
Effective cooperation mechanism
The first Cambodia-Laos-Myanmar-Vietnam (CLMV) Summit was organized in Vientiane, Laos in 2004, then in rotation, took place in Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos again, Cambodia and now in Myanmar. At these summits, attendees made strong commitments to boost cooperation in transport, agriculture, industry, tourism, health care, environment, energy, and human resource training.
With more than 200 ongoing projects focusing on infrastructure development, transportation, infrastructure development for economic integration, information technology, telecommunications, and human resource development, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia have obtained significant achievements in reducing poverty, improving environment and promoting regional tourism. But they need even more regional cooperation to boost their growth. The 7th Cambodia-Laos-Myanmar-Vietnam (CLMV) Summit will review the implementation of signed projects, and work out new ways to boost regional cooperation. The summit will give government leaders a chance to agree on future cooperation mechanisms in economics, trade, investment, transportation, agriculture, industry, energy, tourism, human resource development, and mobilizing external resources for regional development.
Vietnam promotes sub-region cooperation
Vietnam has over the past few years proactively participated in the sub-region cooperation mechanism and played a leading role in designing annual action programs for CLMV cooperation. Vietnam introduced a number of initiatives to increase cooperation efficiency. From 2013 to 2014, Vietnam chaired the Marketing and Communications Working Group for ASEAN Tourism Infrastructure Connectivity.
At these summits, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and other leaders will review the implementation of 10 Mekong cooperation mechanisms, bilateral cooperation between nations and promotion of the Mekong Sub-region’s sustainable growth. They will also look at cooperation with the US, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the Asian Development Bank.
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung will also attend the sixth Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy Summit. This is a cooperation framework which includes Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam which aims to strengthen economic cooperation and exploit individual competitive advantages to increase their overall competitiveness and narrow their development gaps. The leaders will review the ACMECS Action Program in the 2013-2015 period. This program focused on industry, energy, tourism, trade, investment, agriculture, human resource development, transportation, health care, social security and environment cooperation, aims to strengthen cooperation between ACMECS, the imminent ASEAN Economic Community and the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity. Leaders will discuss orientations, targets and areas of further cooperation between AMECS members and external partners. By attending this summit, Vietnam wants to demonstrate its strong commitment to these cooperation mechanisms and to bilateral cooperation with regional neighbors, particularly Myanmar.