Vietnamese Ambassador to Laos Nguyen Ba Hung grants an interview to the media. (Photo: VNA) In an interview granted to the Vietnam News Agency ahead of the PM’s participation, Vietnamese Ambassador to Laos Nguyen Ba Hung further said Vientiane summit is a good occasion for the member countries and partners to discuss and work towards their cooperation targets in the use, development, and protection of water resources and related ones in a sustainable manner for the sake of the member countries and welfare for basin residents.
The MRC is a cooperation mechanism with the engagementof four members (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand) and two others locatedin the upper Mekong River as dialogue partners (China and Myanmar). It was establishedwith a view to promoting comprehensive cooperation to build a responsiblecommunity and ensure common interests in the sub-region.
The summit is also a chance to step up therealisation of the four member countries’ highest political commitments toeffectively implement the 1995 Mekong Agreement and the MRC’s functions;analyse and assess challenges and opportunities related to water resources,including the sustainable development and environmental management in thebasin; devise orientations for basin development and management; and reachconsensus on the agreements and plans for implementing the Basin DevelopmentStrategy for 2021 - 2030, Hung noted.
PM Chinh’s attendance in the summit affirmsVietnam’s role and sense of responsibility to help boost the effectiveimplementation of the 1995 Mekong Agreement and promote the contents matchingVietnam’s interests and important to the common and sustainable development inthe basin, he went on.
About Vietnam’s contributions to the MRC, the ambassador noted the country has playedan active part since the first stage of this mechanism’s formation, seriouslycarried out the Mekong Agreement, and actively helped resolve differences inthe commission.
To help promote substantive cooperation in the Mekong Riverbasin and the MRC, Vietnam has made strong political commitments whileactively and effectively engaging in the commission, he said, elaborating that it hasjoined other members in negotiating and building important documents of theMRC, especially the 1995 Mekong Agreement and the rules for water utilisation, reformingthe commission and its Secretariat, and building and implementing its importantstrategies, projects, and studies.
It hasshown active participation in building and implementing main cooperation programmesand projects of the MRC such as those on the environment, fisheries, andflood and drought management.
Thecountry successfully hosted the second MRC Summit in Ho Chi Minh City in April2014, helping devise directions for the commission’s cooperation activities. Besides,it has also helped enhance the MRC’s cooperation with dialogue and developmentpartners, as well as partnerships with countries in other river basins, includingthe Ganges, the Danube, the Nile, the Amazon, and the Mississippi, according tothe diplomat./.
