Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Hoang Tuan Anh chaired the first Cambodia - Laos -Myanmar- Vietnam (CLMV) Tourism Ministers’ Meeting, which took place in Ho Chi Minh City on September 14.

The meeting was attended by Cambodian Tourism Minister Thong Khon, Lao Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism Bosengkham Vongdara, and Myanmar Ambassador to Vietnam Thet Oo.

The officials noted the impressive rise in the number of international tourists to the four countries in the past years. In 2011, CLMV welcomed more than 12.3 million visitors, an increase of 14.5 percent over the previous year. Of the total, 17 percent were from the four countries.

They reviewed the implementation and of the ministerial joint statement on CLMV tourism cooperation signed in 2010 with a theme of “Four Countries – One Destination”, and examined the mutual support in international tourism events and forums.

In terms of cooperation with partners, the ministers highly valued the support of the Centres of ASEAN-Japan and ASEAN - Republic of Korea in personnel training and promoting images of the four countries in the Japanese and Korean markets. Besides, they spoke highly of the helps of the Asian Development Bank in infrastructure development.

They also signed a plan of tourism cooperation among the four countries for the 2013-2015 period, which aims to bring into play the achievements and further promote effectiveness of the cooperation, as well as raising the proactive capacity of the four countries in accessing international organisations as a bloc, in order to make them a single destination.-VNA