Vietnam plays active part in Mekong River Commission: ambassador
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 engagement of four members (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand) and two others located in the upper Mekong River as dialogue partners (China and Myanmar). It was established with a view to promoting comprehensive cooperation to build a responsible community and ensure common interests in the sub-region.
The summit is also a chance to step up the
realisation of the four member countries’ highest political commitments to
effectively 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 the
basin; devise orientations for basin development and management; and reach
consensus on the agreements and plans for implementing the Basin Development
Strategy for 2021 - 2030, Hung noted.
PM Chinh’s attendance in the summit affirms
Vietnam’s role and sense of responsibility to help boost the effective
implementation of the 1995 Mekong Agreement and promote the contents matching
Vietnam’s interests and important to the common and sustainable development in
the basin, he went on.
About Vietnam’s contributions to the MRC, the ambassador noted the country has played
an active part since the first stage of this mechanism’s formation, seriously
carried out the Mekong Agreement, and actively helped resolve differences in
the commission.
To help promote substantive cooperation in the Mekong River
basin and the MRC, Vietnam has made strong political commitments while
actively and effectively engaging in the commission, he said, elaborating that it has
joined other members in negotiating and building important documents of the
MRC, especially the 1995 Mekong Agreement and the rules for water utilisation, reforming
the commission and its Secretariat, and building and implementing its important
strategies, projects, and studies.
It has
shown active participation in building and implementing main cooperation programmes
and projects of the MRC such as those on the environment, fisheries, and
flood and drought management.
The
country successfully hosted the second MRC Summit in Ho Chi Minh City in April
2014, helping devise directions for the commission’s cooperation activities. Besides,
it has also helped enhance the MRC’s cooperation with dialogue and development
partners, as well as partnerships with countries in other river basins, including
the Ganges, the Danube, the Nile, the Amazon, and the Mississippi, according to
the diplomat./.