Vietnam commits to support all of ASEAN enterprises’ initiatives and assures all ASEAN business people will be given favorable conditions, Prime Minister Phan Van Khai said at the 11th ASEAN Summit held in Malaysia on December 11-12.
Addressing the event, the Prime Minister affirmed the important role of enterprises in reinforcing ASEAN’s economic strength, which is regarded as the frame work for economic linkage in East Asia. He also called for more efforts among business communities to increase intra-ASEAN trade which now accounts for around 20 per cent of ASEAN’s total global trade.
Khai pointed out that to reach that aim, ASEAN must strengthen trade and investment cooperation, increase market access for manufactured and processed products. ASEAN also needs to focus on enhancing economic linkages via increasing the product range, boosting tourism and other service sectors in order to raise intra-ASEAN trade, he added.
PM Phan Van Khai noted that the Southeast Asia countries should also reduce transaction costs and give more favorable conditions for enterprises to invest in the knowledge economy and human resource development.
In the meeting with Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on the same day, PM Phan Van Khai agreed to speed up the implementation of cooperative program between the two sides in the coming time, aiming at luring more investment capital into Vietnam. Also on the same day, Vietnam’s PM attended the second summit of the Heads of Governments of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam (CLMV) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which are the four most underdeveloped members of ASEAN. In the joint declaration of the meeting, the four leaders agreed to strengthen socio-economic cooperation between the four countries in the coming time.
Regarding the first East Asia Summit ended on December 14 in Kuala Lumpur with the participation of leaders of 10 ASEAN countries, China, Japan, Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand, Vietnam’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Dy Nien announced that the participating countries have frankly discussed opportunities and challenges of the region; the determination on strengthening dialogues and cooperation in all fields to ensure the regional security and peace, including anti-terrorism and trans-national criminals, and sea security; enhancement of economic, trade, finance, energy security and information technology cooperation; and other issues.
At meetings with his Indian and Indonesian counterparts Manmohan Singh and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in the sidelines of the multilateral summit, Prime Minister Phan Van Khai announced that Vietnam wants to work more closely with India and Indonesia in various fields in the coming period. Talking with Singh, PM Khai and his counterpart discussed collaboration in the fields of science and space and also cooperation in economics and trade, and he made the invitation to Singh to have an official visit to Vietnam in the near future.
Also in the sidelines, Prime Minister Phan Van Khai and his counterpart Koizumi of Japan witnessed the signing of a pact to officially conclude negotiation on Vietnam’s bid to join World Trade Organization (WTO). The two leaders also agreed to shortly launch formal negotiation on a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) to speedily boost economic cooperation between the two economies.
They agreed with the plan to set up a joint study group next month and start full-fledged FTA talks as early as the coming summer. They also said that the expected agreement, the first FTA for Vietnam, might cover areas that are not included in the most powerful Asian economy’s talks with other ASEAN member, such as intellectual property protection as well as Hanoi's tariffs on industrial goods, and anticipates that its farm and fisheries tariffs will also be addressed in the negotiations.
VNA
Vietnamese
