9:42:59 AM | 8/2/2005
Since Vietnam joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on 28 July 1995, it has played a more and more important role in the block, as well as broadened and deepened all-round relations, especially trade and investment ones, with its members.
Vietnamrsquo;s joining the regional grouping ignited the accession of Myanmar and Laos in July 1997 and Cambodia in April 1999, turning the idea about an integrated entity consisting of all 10 Southeast Asian countries, into reality. Vietnamrsquo;s active participation in the ASEAN has indicated that nations with different ideologies, political systems and socioeconomic development levels can unite and cooperate for peace, stability and prosperity of the region as well as the world.
The accession of Vietnam in particular, and the three countries in general changed the blockrsquo;s nature and development orientation. Southeast Asia, which had experienced complicated and hostile regional situations, advanced into a friendly and cooperative region.
Vietnam plays an important role in the ASEANrsquo;s decision-making process with regard to its external relations, since the country has traditional geopolitical ties with many major partners of the block. That has helped the ASEAN and its partners, including China, have better mutual understanding and closer cooperation.
With its strategic geographical location, Vietnam, one of the 18 first members of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), has made considerable contributions to the higher status and stronger voice of the block in general and the regional security forum in particular in the international arena. Vietnam also plays a role in the strategic balance and the effect among major countries in the world, especially between the United States and China, which is important to the maintaining of peace, stability and cooperation in Southeast Asia.
After actively participated in the ASEANrsquo;s activities in its first years of membership, Vietnam started partaking in managing the block and issuing policies for its development. It successfully hosted the 6th ASEAN Summit in Hanoi in December 1998, at which the Hanoi Plan of Action (HPA) was adopted. The six-year HPA is the first in a series of plans of actions building up to the realisation of the goals of the ASEAN Vision 2020: an ASEAN as a concert of Southeast Asian Nations, outward looking, living in peace, stability and prosperity, bonded together in partnership in dynamic development and in a community of caring societies.
To date, Vietnam has propounded a large number of initiatives regarding different spheres, including those on narrowing development gaps among ASEAN members, developing the Greater Mekong Sub-region, organising ASEAN culture weeks, beefing up East Asia tourism cooperation, and addressing drug issues among youths. Among the initiatives, many are not merely specific projects in a specific field, but of strategic significance.
Vietnam always keeps on broadening and deepening its multifaceted relations, especially trade and investment ones, with other ASEAN members. Trade between Vietnam and ASEAN members has seen average annual growth of over 20 per cent since the 1990s. With the annual trade of US$11-12 billion in recent years, the ASEAN is one of five biggest partners of Vietnam.
According to the Vietnamese Trade Ministry, Vietnamrsquo;s export turnovers to the ASEAN rose to US$3.87 billion in 2004 from US$2.61 billion in 2000 and US$1.11 billion in 1995. In 2003, the country reaped US$1.2 billion, US$388 million, US$172 million, US$82 million, and US$81 million from shipping crude oil, rice, electronic appliances and components, garments and textiles, and seafood, respectively.
Investment from ASEAN members in Vietnam has sharply risen since the countryrsquo;s admission to the block. ASEAN members, excluding Myanmar, have pledged to pour US$11.3 billion into 700 investment projects in Vietnam since 1995, representing 23 per cent of the countryrsquo;s total foreign investment, and 12 per cent of foreign-invested projects. Before July 1995, they had nearly 200 projects with total registered investment of over US$2 billion.
As of late July 2005, the largest ASEAN investor in Vietnam was Singapore with 366 operational projects totaling roughly US$8.14 billion. It was also the biggest investor out of 70 countries and territories having projects in Vietnam. In Vietnam, by that time, Malaysia had 170 valid projects worth US$1.44 billion, Thailand 120 worth US$1.43 billion, the Philippines 22 worth US$233.4 million, Indonesia 13 worth US$130.1 million, Brunei 9 worth US$25 million, Laos 6 worth nearly US$16.1 million, and Cambodia 3 worth US$1 million, according to Vietnamrsquo;s Ministry of Planning and Investment. Investors from some ASEAN countries, including Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia, have been active in developing industrial parks and export processing zones in Vietnam, especially in its localities of Hanoi, Binh Duong, Dong Nai, Da Nang.
It is Vietnamrsquo;s political and social stability and high economic growth that have helped strengthen its bilateral ties with other ASEAN members in particular, and the regionrsquo;s overall development. Cooperative ties between Vietnam and the ASEAN in all spheres, especially economy, trade and investment, will bear more fruits in the future, partly because the country with a population of more than 82 million has witnessed rapid socioeconomic development in recent years, with gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 7.7 per cent in 2004.
The ASEAN was founded on 8 August 1967 in Thailand by the five original members, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. It currently has a population of about 500 million, a total area of 4.5 million square kilometers, a combined GDP of US$737 billion, and a total trade of US$720 billion.
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