Local researchers have pinpointed the main role of the Central Highlands in the country’s cross-border cooperation and in the Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia development triangle.

Gathering at a seminar in Hanoi on August 9, they discussed advantages and disadvantages possessed by the region and ways it turns these things on to boost the country’s cooperation with neighbouring Laos and Cambodia.
 
Vice President of the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences (VASS) Nguyen Quang Thuan pointed out that economic cooperation between neighbouring countries is proved to be increasingly efficient for their common interests.

He cited trans-border cooperation models like the Indonesia-Malaysia-Singapore development triangle and the Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-the Philippines development quadrangle as successful ones.

The researchers agreed that similarities in geo-politics, socio-economics, and advantages in natural resources are favourable for trilateral cross-border cooperation.

Such issues relating to law, social affairs, national security-defence, migration, environmental protection and crime should be properly addressed for cross-border socio-economic cooperation to thrive.

Among the issues to that cooperation, how to spur the area growth and how to proactively deal with hostile forces do matter, they said.

In the Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia development triangle, the Central Highlands boasts a vast area of forests as well as resources for hydroelectricity generation. Having a strategic important position, the region is, however, facing difficulties mocked by rugged terrains as well as a widening gap in intellectual standards.-VNA