This is an important event for Southeast Asia because it illustrates joint efforts made by concerned parties to promote sub-regional cooperation. For Viet Nam, the meeting is more significant because this is the first time a high-level Vietnamese delegation led by Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai has attended the ACMECS Summit.

Initiated by Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shiwanatra, the ACMECS organisation was established in November 2003, initially involving Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Thailand. Its main goals are to strengthen multilateral and bilateral economic cooperation, improve their competitive edge, and narrow the development gap among these countries, as well as to increase cooperation in their border areas.

The first ACMECS Summit, held in Bagan, Myanmar, in 2003, issued a joint declaration, underlining five priorities for sub-regional cooperation, including trade and investment facilitation, industrial and agricultural cooperation, and transport network, tourism, and human resources development.

At the meeting, the Economic Cooperation Strategy Plan of Actions (ECSPA), consisting of 46 joint projects and 246 bilateral cooperation programmes among ACMECS members, was adopted.

After being admitted to the organisation on May 10, 2004, Viet Nam has attended ACMECS Foreign Ministerial Meetings, and the country has been named as the ACMECS’s coordinator in human resources development. Viet Nam has so far put forward nearly 50 cooperation projects within the ACMECS framework.

Viet Nam has presented three projects in the transportation area, which are among the list of 26 projects of priority, including facilitating human and goods cross-border transportation between Myanmar, Laos and Viet Nam; building the agreement allowing cars to cross borders between five ACMECS member countries and building Hang Giang college No. 2 in Ho Chi Minh City into an ACMECS inland-waterway professional training centre. Viet Nam's multi- and bi-lateral cooperation projects in the areas of tourism, establishment of economic zones at border gates and poverty reduction programmes in the Mekong Delta have been recognised as feasible, thus helping boost sub-regional cooperation.

During this meeting, five ACMECS member countries will discuss measures and directions of future cooperation and approve the Chaophraya Declaration. Additionally, the meeting will also focus on dialogues between leaders and ACMECS businesses on government-business relations.

Being convened at a time when the bird flu pandemic is threatening the international community, the ACMECS Summit will also discuss cooperation between regional countries in the fight against bird flu. Leaders from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Viet Nam are expected to issue a joint declaration, which will stress their determination to establish a supervision system with liaison points in respective countries in order to inform each other of the latest developments of bird flu. They will discuss ways to boost cooperation in five areas stated in Bagan Declaration, and hold a follow-up discussion on how to introduce a single-visa system under the "five -countries, one-destination" scheme, which would allow tourists to enter all five countries with one visa, in order to promote the development of regional tourism.

Agricultural cooperation will also be high on the summit's agenda. Accordingly, leaders from the five member countries will exchange views on how to remove difficulties in granting certificates of origin, and exempt import taxes imposed on farm produce traded at border areas.

Of course, the ACMECS will face potential challenges ahead because it is a newly-established organization. Lacking financial resources and overlapping mechanisms, mainly in bilateral projects (about 300 projects), are also problems facing the ACMECS's economic cooperation. Additionally, there remain other challenges such as sky-rocketing oil prices, spread of contagious diseases and natural disasters.

This reality has created tasks for its members, including the selection of prioritised projects, the increase of coordination mechanisms and the expansion of cooperation to the areas of energy, security and healthcare. In order to boost their cooperation with other partners, ACMECS countries have introduced the organisation's activities, and called for support from development partners such as Canada, Australia, France, Japan, Singapore and the European Union.

From their economic cooperation strategy, the ACMECS member countries, where the three rivers run through, appreciated the establishment of this sub-regional cooperation model with a hope to make the rivers' potential resources beneficial to residents living in the region, thus contributing to the economic growth of each country.

We strongly believe that this ACMECS summit will be an important follow-up step to strengthen cooperation bilaterally and multilaterally among countries in this dynamic region./.