The leaders of Japan and five Southeast Asian countries lying along the Mekong River sub-region plan to craft a new strategy with Tokyo’s greater contributions to the sub-region’s sustainable development beyond 2015, said Japanese senior Vice Foreign Minister Minoru Kiuchi in Tokyo on February 19.
The five Mekong sub-regional countries include Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Japanese senior Vice Foreign Minister Minoru Kiuchi
Speaking at the Forum for the Promotion of Public-Private Cooperation in the Mekong Region, Kiuchi said the leaders will assemble in July to draw up a new strategy that will succeed the “Tokyo Strategy 2012 for Mekong-Japan Cooperation” for further development of Japan and the Mekong region as they are about to enter a new stage of cooperation.
He affirmed that Japan will continue to reinforce the objective of building a well-developed infrastructure to promote the sustainable development of the Mekong region.
The leaders are expected to approve the new strategy at the Japan-Mekong summit slated for July 4 in Tokyo ahead of the planned launch of the ASEAN Economic Community at the end of this year.
In the “Tokyo Strategy 2012 for Mekong-Japan Cooperation”, Japan pledged an assistance of 600 billion JPY (6 billion USD) to the Mekong region, with over 500 billion JPY going to infrastructure construction and other development projects.
VNA
