MPI’s bright regional vision

The Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) chief said the country was committed to actively contributing to the Greater Mekong Subregion’s (GMS) new long-term strategic framework for 2012-2022.

“Vietnam will continue tabling its own opinions about building broad directions in the preparation of the new strategic framework,” said MPI Minister Vo Hong Phuc at last week’s 16th GMS Ministerial Meeting in Hanoi.

The new strategic framework includes transport and trade facilitation, railway development, agriculture, tourism, human resource development and the environment.

For example, Vietnam now attracts investment projects committed to environmental protection and renewable energy in connection with regional countries’ transfer of renewable energy, clean fuels and energy efficiency technology, toward more climate change responsive energy development, Phuc said.

Phuc said Vietnam had also shared its agricultural production experiences to help other regional countries to ensure food security, which was an important part of the GMS’ new core agriculture support programme between 2011-2015, helping address emerging challenges to the GMS’ agricultural development.

The new strategic framework is reflected in many projects and programmes agreed by ministers from the six GMS countries at the meeting, such as connecting GMS railways and promoting renewable energy.

Lawrence Greenwood, vice president of the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Operation Group 2, said: “As the GMS programme enters a new decade, all regional countries including Vietnam need to look at emerging challenges and opportunities, to define the new frontiers of cooperation, in order to build a strong GMS economy and further cement their cooperation.”

For example, under the GMS core environment programme, which aims to ensure the region’s environmental protection and energy saving, Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade has implemented a strategic environmental assessment of the country’s fourth power development plan.

A main conclusion from the work, carried out jointly by the ADB, Stockholm Environment Institute, Electricity of Vietnam and the MPI, revealed that hydropower development showed great potential in water management, agricultural development, service provision and poverty reduction.

In another case, in order to address the spread of transboundary animal diseases, the governments of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam have embarked on two regional cooperation projects, including one about transboundary animal disease control in the GMS and another about supporting research on patterns of livestock trade and disease control in the GMS.

“Vietnam also participating actively in the GMS’s tourism sector strategy, which aims to develop and promote the GMS as a single destination.