ASEAN economic officials review plan

Published: 06/04/2010 05:00

The ASEAN Senior Economic Officials Meeting held a preparatory session to review the implementation of the overall plan for the ASEAN Economic Community . . .

Senior officials gave opinions on the ASEAN Statement on Sustained Recovery and Development which reaffirmed ASEAN efforts to escape the effects of the global economic crisis and maintain growth.

The session also approved some initiatives to boost ASEAN economic co-operation for submission to the ASEAN Economic Ministers Meeting and ASEAN Economic Community Council.

Le Quang Lan, head of Viet Nam’s delegation, said that key measures were closely related to economic development and environment protection and aimed to shrink the development gap.

The senior economic officials also discussed boosting free trade agreements, ASEAN’s role in the regional economy, and the participation of enterprises in ASEAN integration.

A preparatory meeting for the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (SOCA) also took place yesterday to discuss a comprehensive plan for the ASEAN socio-cultural community and challenges facing this community through 2015.

The meeting agreed to prepare three documents in the fields of human resources development, cultural co-operation and social welfare for women and children.

The participants also defined the priorities for this year with Viet Nam as chairman of ASEAN, including coping with global challenges, developing human resources for economic recovery, and raising cultural co-operation among ASEAN members.

Meanwhile, in Khanh Hoa Province, deputy finance ministers and central bank deputy governors of ASEAN+3 – China, South Korea and Japan – gathered to discuss financial co-operation.

Participants reviewed the progress of regional financial initiatives such as the Asian Bond Markets Initiative and the Chiang Mai Initiative on Multilateralisation. They presented a draft agreement on the building of a credit guarantee mechanism and investment in development of bond markets in the region.

Yesterday afternoon, April 6, State Bank of Viet Nam Governor Nguyen Van Giau and the head of Thailand’s central bank, Tarisa Watanagase, signed a memorandum of understanding on exchanging information of audits and supervision of the two banks. The MoU was aimed at enhancing national financial safeguards and ensuring secure and healthy operations of the financial system of each country.

The MoU was viewed as a foundation for credit institutions in Viet Nam and Thailand to open representative offices in each other’s country.

The two sides agreed that they saw this co-operation as part of the expansion of regional and global financial co-operation to resolve the impacts of the global economic crisis and predicted that it would bring remarkable benefits.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News