The 10 th ASEAN Senor Officials Meeting on Minerals (ASOM) in Bangkok from March 3-5 focused on discussing regional cooperation to boost investment and sustainable development as well as improve management capacity in the mining industry.

ASOM and a March 4 consultation meeting between ASEAN senior officials and three dialogue partners, including China, Japan and the Republic of Korea (ASOM+3), also discussed steps to strengthen cooperation in order to take the full advantage of mineral resources in the region.

The delegates informed each other about the developments of the ASEAN mineral cooperation programme from 2009-2011 and proposed an action plan for the 2011-2015 period.

Speaking on the sidelines of the meeting, Deputy Chief of the Department of Geology and Minerals of Vietnam Nguyen Quang Hung and Deputy Director of the Vietnam Institute of Geosciences and Mineral Resources Tran Tan Van said that the Vietnamese delegation presented four proposals at the meeting, including assessments of climate change impacts on ASEAN’s mining industry and measures to cope with and minimise climate change impacts on mines at risk of being submerged; and accelerating the development of geothermic and clean energies in the region in order to ensure energy security.

Boosting the sustainable development of limestone areas to preserve the biodiversity, develop tourism and effectively cope with climate change problems; and building the capacity of surveying, exploring and exploiting underground mines were also put on table.

The Vietnamese delegation compared notes on bilateral and multilateral cooperation with partners, including China and the RoK, as well as the implementation of mining projects in Laos , Myanmar and Cambodia .

The results of the meeting will be submitted to the third ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Minerals to be held in Vietnam this year./.