VietNamNet Bridge – The third Ayeyawadi-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Summit (ACMECS) and the fourth Cambodia-Laos-Myanmar-Vietnam Summit (CLMV) will take place in Hanoi from Nov. 4-7.

The news was announced by Deputy Foreign Minister Doan Xuan Hung at a regular press briefing on Oct. 30.

Hung said the summits will draw together Prime Ministers, Foreign Ministers and officials from relevant ministries of member countries to discuss solutions to improve their efficiency in implementing cooperation agreements reached at previous summits.

The events are expected to see the attendance of approximately 400 businessmen from a number of regional countries, plus representatives from international organisations, and investors from Japan, the Republic of Korea, the US and Europe Union.

The ACMECS is scheduled to issue a joint statement regarding facilitating trade, investment and tourism between the five member countries, and the CLMV is due to ratify a joint statement of leaders and a list of projects prioritised for implementation in the near future.

According to Hung, new areas being addressed at these summits are the organisation of an ACMECS Business Forum and a dialogue between ACMECS leaders and businessmen, that will offer excellent opportunities for businesses to hold discussions and to give suggestions and initiatives to facilitate trade, investment and tourism activities and to boost regional economic cooperation.

“Businesses are major participants and factors underlying cooperation. This is a new start and I believe that more and more businesses, not only from member countries but also other regional countries, will join in the cooperation mechanism,” Hung stressed.

Established in November 2003, ACMECS is an economic cooperation mechanism of five countries; Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, which aims to boost cooperation in five major fields: trade-investment, industry-agriculture, transport, tourism, and human resource development. Vietnam joined the ACMECS in November 2004.

The CLMV mechanism was formed in 2004 under the initiative of Laos . In addition to the five cooperation fields being addressed by the ACMECS, the CLMV also focuses on tourism, information technology and communication.

(Source: VNA)