Vietnam attends Asian Cooperation Dialogue meeting

The meeting's agenda focused on discussing visions and orientations for the practical cooperation among ACD members in the coming time, corresponding to economic, political, historical and cultural strengths of Asia, the cradle of many long-standing civilizations.

The meeting also reviewed the ACD cooperation and dialogue process in the last year, especially in 19 major fields including energy security, poverty alleviation, human resource development, finance, information technology, environment, agriculture... The meeting approved the Seoul Declaration on IT to narrow the digital divide among the countries. The Ministers agreed to found a senior research group with many officials and scholars from ACD members in order to set up ACD goals and visions in the future and propose organizational structure, financial regime and membership statutes which should be submitted to the 7th ACD meeting scheduled in Kazakhstan in 2008.

At the meeting, Deputy Foreign Minister Vũ Dũng, head of the Vietnamese delegation, suggested the ACD to focus its activities on promoting the dynamic development and integration of member countries in the coming time.
He went on to say that priorities should be given to bridging the development gap between countries in the region, as well as to boosting their cooperation in developing human resources and reducing poverty.
At the two-day meeting, the Vietnamese delegation briefed participants of the results of the first ACD international forum on human resources development held in Hanoi in May 2007. The forum’s outcome received high acclaim from delegates and was considered a pivotal step in boosting member countries’ cooperation in this field.

By Hoàng Nguyên