Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam should further strengthen cooperation on the principle of equality and mutual benefit, promoting internal strengths in combination with the international assistance, as well as intensifying scientific and technological application and investment attraction.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung made this statement while attending the fifth Cambodia-Laos-Myanmar-Vietnam (CLMV 5) Summit, which took place in Phnom Penh on Nov. 16.

PM Dung said that after six years of development, the CLMV cooperation has moved from forming mechanism to gradually implementing specific cooperative activities.

He noted, however, that this cooperation is yet to meet the four countries’ aspirations and match their potentials, stressing the slow implementation of cooperative activities due to difficulties in mobilizing capital and weak capacity.

At the summit, PM Dung and his Cambodian, Lao and Myanmar counterparts reviewed cooperative activities that have been deployed since the fourth CLMV Summit in Hanoi in 2008 in such fields as trade and investment, transport, agriculture, industry and energy, tourism and human resource development.

The CLMV 5 recorded several specific progresses in the four countries’ cooperation since that time, including Vietnam’s establishment of the CLMV Scholarship Fund.

To boost the search for capital sources to fund CLMV projects, the prime ministers approved a list of 16 top priority projects in the four countries.

They agreed to adopt a Joint Statement that affirms a determination to continue strengthening cooperation within the CLMV mechanism for peace, stability and prosperity in the Mekong sub-region, and helping narrow the development gap between CLMV and other ASEAN member countries.

The prime ministers also agreed to hold the next CLMV Summit in Laos in 2012./.