Bangkok (VNA) – Foreign ministers of Cambodia,Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam highly valued the Republic of Korea (RoK)’scontributions to the Mekong region in the recent past while attending a meetingin Bangkok on August 3.

The 9th Mekong-RoK Foreign Ministers’ Meetingtook place on the sidelines of the 52nd ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in thecapital city of Thailand.

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister PhamBinh Minh led the Vietnamese delegation to the event.

The participating officials appreciated theRoK’s contributions to the Mekong region through official developmentassistance and the Mekong-RoK Cooperation Fund (MKCF). They also welcomed theNortheast Asian nation’s New Southern Policy with a vision for a people-centredcommunity of peace and prosperity.

They agreed to organise the first Mekong-RoKSummit on the sidelines of ASEAN-RoK Summit in Busan city this November.

At the meeting, the ministers reviewed theimplementation of the Mekong-RoK Action Plan for 2017-2020 and recognised theprogress of cooperation projects in sea ports, the application of informationand communication technologies (ICT) to culture and education, forestpreservation, and sustainable agriculture.

They agreed that in the time ahead, the Mekongcountries and the RoK will continue implementing the priority projects in theAction Plan, enhance coordination with other cooperation mechanisms in theregion, and encourage the participation of the private sector.

They will also press on with projectscontributing to sustainable development, including the management andsustainable use of water resources, and work closely with the Mekong RiverCommission.

In 2019, the MKCF will support seven newprojects, including the Vietnamese one on promoting the irrigation capacity toserve agricultural development in the Mekong Delta.

During the event, the ministers also discussedsome international and regional issues, including the East Sea and the KoreanPeninsula issues, along with non-traditional challenges like water resources,food and energy security.

Applauding the RoK’s contributions to the Mekongregion, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Minh proposed some prioritycooperation fields for the coming time such as dialogue, manpower training andtechnology transfer in the field of green growth, agricultural cooperation todevelop plant varieties that can adapt to climate change, sustainablemanagement of submerged forest ecosystems, water use efficiency,  educational collaboration, ICT development inrural areas, and ICT manpower development.

Concluding the meeting, the officials adoptedthe co-chairs’ statement and agreed to hold the next Mekong-RoK Foreign Ministers’Meeting on the sidelines of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Vietnam in2020.

They also agreed to work closely together forthe success of the first Mekong-RoK Summit. -VNA