Vietnam’s premier warned Thursday that the current upheavals in the world economy would not spare Southeast Asia’s Mekong river countries.

Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam are particularly vulnerable to the global turmoil, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said at the opening of a regional summit.

He called for the grouping and the wider Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to step up their cooperation to fight the impact of the global turmoil and push forward the fight against poverty.

“With their low and limited levels of development, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam are the most vulnerable countries to negative upheavals in the regional and world economy,” said Dung.

Myanmar’s Prime Minister Thein Sein warned the financial crisis “may lead to a decline in development assistance from our development partners” and said the region should increasingly look to India, China and Japan for help.

The premiers of the four developing countries met Thursday in Vietnam’s flood-hit capital Hanoi, where they were to be joined for a dinner and a broader summit Friday by Thailand’s new Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat.

Somchai, speaking at Bangkok airport before flying to Hanoi, said he wanted to discuss the impact of high cooking prices with his regional neighbours, as well as thorny border issues with military-ruled Myanmar.

“During my trip to Vietnam I will take the opportunity to raise the issue of rice prices with the Vietnamese prime minister, and with the Myanmar prime minister I will bring up the issues of the border and drugs,” he said.

Except for middle-income country Thailand, the other four nations remain among Asia’s poorest and hope to build prosperity through closer regional transport and commercial links, both with each other and with China.

Source: AFP