Sunday, 30 March 2008

Mekong nations aim to grow closer at Laos summit

Thanh Nien News
Sunday, March 30, 2008

Leaders from six Mekong River countries will meet in Laos today and tomorrow to discuss closer integration, mainly through new transport corridors and a regional power grid.

Six premiers are expected at the mostly closed-door summit - Vietnam’s Nguyen Tan Dung, China’s Wen Jiabao, Thailand’s Samak Sundaravej, Cambodia’s Hun Sen, Myanmar’s Thein Sein and the Lao host, Bouasone Bouphavanh.

The summit is the “highest-level affirmation of the desire and willingness to continue to incorporate as a sub-region,” John Cooney, the ADB’s infrastructure division director for Southeast Asia, told AFP.

The Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) groups China’s southern Yunnan and Guangxi provinces with Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar.

Initiated by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the group was founded in 1992 to boost economic growth and reduce poverty in the countries that share the Mekong, Southeast Asia’s largest river.

Since the 1990s, the region, though still plagued by poverty, has been mostly at peace and has collectively grown at one of the fastest rates in the world, with average economic growth of 7.9 percent in 2005, the ADB said.

The Mekong region is home to more than 266 million people, most of whom rely on agriculture and fishing.

The population is set to reach 290 million by 2015.

GMS leaders previously met in Phnom Penh in 2002 and China in 2005.

Source: AFP

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