Việt Nam, Kampuchea, Lào ký hiệp ước về biên giới
27/08/2008
Việt Nam, Kampuchea và Lào đã ký với nhau một hiệp ước xác định giao điểm đường biên giới giữa 3 nước, mở đường để ba nước hợp tác thêm nữa trong công cuộc phát triển và mang lại những lợi ích chung.
Tân Hoa Xã cho hay theo tinh thần bản hiệp ước ký kết hôm thứ Ba tại Hà Nội, 3 nước sẽ tiếp tục làm việc về những vấn đề liên hệ tới việc xác định rõ đường biên giới trên bộ và củng cố hệ thống mốc giới trên tuyến biên giới Việt Nam, Lào và Kampuchea.
Lên tiếng trong buổi lễ tiếp đón Bộ Trưởng cao cấp phụ trách vấn đề biên giới của Hội Đồng Bộ Trưởng Kampuchea Var Kim Hong và Thứ Trưởng Ngoại Giao Lào Phongsavat Bupha, Thủ Tướng Việt Nam Nguyễn Tấn Dũng nói rằng 3 nước nên cùng nhau hoạt động để xây dựng hòa bình, thân hữu, hợp tác và phát triển trên đường biên giới để phục vụ cho chương trình phát triển tam giác giữa ba nước Việt Nam, Lào và Kampuchea.
Bộ trưởng Kampuchea cho biết nước ông sẽ gia tăng hợp tác với Việt Nam trong việc đánh dấu đường biên giới và cắm cột mốc. Ông tỏ ý hy vọng ít nhất 100 cột mốc sẽ được cắm trên ranh giới 2 nước trong năm nay, và việc cắm mọi cột mốc cần thiết sẽ hoàn tất năm 2012.
Thứ Trưởng Bộ Ngoại Giao Lào khẳng định là Lào sẽ thúc đây sự hợp tác trong việc cắm mốc biên giới trên đường ranh giới của hai nước để giúp gia tăng phát triển doanh thương, du lịch và trao đổi hoạt đông giữa những người sống dọc vùng biên giới.
Theo hiệp ước giao điểm đường biên giới giữa 3 nước được Thứ Trưởng Ngoại Giao Việt Nam Vũ Dũng ký kết với các ông Var Kim Hong và Phongsavat Bupha, giao điểm này được xác định tại một đỉnh núi có độ cao 1,086 mét so với mặt nước biển, nơi tỉnh Kontum của Việt Nam, tỉnh Attapu của Lào và tỉnh Rattanakiri của Kampuchea tiếp giáp nhau.
Japan commits to assist Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam
HANOI, Aug. 12 (Xinhua) -- Japan remains strong commitment to providing assistance to the Development Triangle Area of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam (CLV), the Lao newspaper Vientiane Times reported Wednesday.
The commitment was made by Ishikane Kimihiro, deputy head of the Southeast and Southwest Asian Department of Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the third CLV-Japan working level meeting held in Vientiane.
The meeting was to review the implementation of cooperation activities funded by Japan and draw up future direction to attract more direct investment of Japan to the triangle area, said the newspaper.
Kimihiro said that his country's assistance would contribute to stability and prosperity of the CLV countries in particular and that of Asia in general.
Japan has so far provided 20 million U.S. dollars for development related to the triangle, said Ya Seng, an official from Lao Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The development triangle area is located in the border areas of the three CLV countries that share many common factors. These include untapped natural resources, potential for economic development and similar socio-cultural conditions.
VietNamNet Bridge - Strong pledges were made at a two-day meeting on trade and investment promotion into the “Development Triangle” comprising 10 border provinces of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia concluded in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, on Feb. 17.
Pledges showed the three countries’ resolve to boost investment into the region, strengthen internal link and put into full use potential and available resources of each and every province for economic development, especially production of commodities.
“No stone will be left unturned so as to reach the goal for high and sustainable economic growth ratified by the Prime Ministers of the three countries in Vientiane , Laos , on November 28, 2004,” they said in an agreement.
The Vietnamese head delegate, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Bich Dat, said the country has issued open policies, offered numerous stimuli and upgraded infrastructure facilities to boost investment from the three countries as well as other countries into the Vietnamese provinces lying in the “Development Triangle.”
“The Vietnamese Government has also taken measures to encourage domestic investors to invest in Lao and Cambodian provinces lying in the Development Triangle,” he added.
The meeting, the second of its kind to date, was marked with a speech by Senior Minister and Trade Minister of Cambodia Cham Prasith. He emphasised the important role played by the “Development Triangle of Cambodia , Laos and Vietnam ” in the socio-economic development of each province in the region and the common future of the three countries as well.
He said the conference would be a good opportunity for businesses and authorities from the three countries’ provinces sharing the borderline to promote trade and investment so as to turn the “Development Triangle” into a region of socio-economically sustainable development.
The meeting drew in over 100 businesses, plus authorities, from the three countries who shared experiences and informed each other with their own countries’ policies and stimuli for foreign investment.
The region has been highly evaluated for its great potential in hydro-power industry, mining, industrial crops growing and processing, and tourism.
(Source: VNA)
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Policy Recommendations from 8th Japan-ASEAN Dialogue
Policy Recommendations on
“Japan-ASEAN Cooperation amid the Financial and Economic Crisis”
to the Governments of Japan and ASEAN Member Countries
by
The 8th Japan-ASEAN Dialogue
co-sponsored by GFJ and ASEAN-ISIS
Tokyo, 10-12 September 2009
One year after the global financial crisis erupted in the United States, Japan and ASEAN have experienced adverse impacts on their economies, which have differed in scale and severity from country to country, and responded with monetary and fiscal policy expansion and financial sector-support measures. Japan and ASEAN economies have shown resilience and are now experiencing a nascent recovery, helped by government measures and expenditures which, in a number of cases, have been beyond the norm.
Looking ahead, Japan and ASEAN face challenges to ensure their recovery and growth is sustained. These challenges will mean that countries in the region may not return to the economic paradigm that existed prior to the crisis, with such a predominant dependence on external demand from markets in the West, especially the US.
Instead, Japan and ASEAN member countries must strengthen their cooperation, seek new and more diverse growth engines and rebalance their economies. In rebalancing their economies, measures to increase domestic and regional demand must be considered as the key priority for the medium to longer term. These efforts will require intensive economic and financial cooperation and will contribute to the greater integration and resilience of the Asian economy and the creation of an East Asian Community.
The 8th Japan-ASEAN Dialogue co-sponsored by the Global Forum of Japan and the ASEAN Institutes of Strategic and International Studies wishes to present its policy recommendations to the Governments of Japan and ASEAN member countries as follows:
Resilience, Transparency and Enhanced Cooperation
1. Japan and ASEAN should resist the temptation of protectionism of any form and refrain from introducing new barriers that can prevent a free flow of trade and investment. Working together and with other institutions and in intergovernmental forums such as APEC and ASEAN Plus Three, Japan and ASEAN should strengthen their monitoring work on measures that might reduce freer trade, including non-tariff barriers, and promote trade facilitation and other efforts to help increase trade and investment flows.
2. Japan and ASEAN should give consideration and support to expansion of mechanisms such as the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization (CMIM), to strengthening of financial oversight and stability, and to development of early warning systems among Asian economies.
3. A key factor to maintain and increase resilience is to strengthen governance (or government quality), compliance and transparency. This is especially needed where government expenditures have been substantially increased as a response to the crisis. It can also be a factor in attracting and enabling the flow of foreign direct investment. Japan and ASEAN should address such issues as corruption, red tape and other malpractices to improve business environments.
Towards a Balanced Growth
4. Economic and financial policies and stimulus packages are playing key roles in the present nascent recovery and should be maintained for the present so that recovery can take root. However, such policies and measures cannot be sustained indefinitely. As such, Japan and ASEAN should start to review existing fiscal and monetary policies in order to develop credible and coherent exit strategies.
5. Even as a nascent recovery is beginning, most analyses are that household consumption in the US and Europe will not resume at pre-crisis levels. Japan and ASEAN should therefore not predicate their future growth on the assumption that such markets will remain a predominant source of growth for export-oriented Asian economies. Instead, the region should seek out new markets—such as those created by the rising middle-class in emerging Asia—and aim, in the medium to longer term, to rebalance growth toward greater domestic and regional demand.
6. Recognizing this need to develop domestic and regional demand in Asia, the governments of Japan and ASEAN should pursue policies with the aim of increasing disposable income and personal consumption on a sustainable basis. In particular, ｔhey should consider fundamental reform of social safety nets to provide households with greater certainty and security about their future and, thus, help reduce precautionary savings.
7. Increasing productivity, skills and knowledge of people will be critical to rebalance the East Asian economies in the medium and long term. As such, Japan and ASEAN should continue to strengthen the capacity of their people, especially their workers. Governments must invest in education, training and other skill-building activities to help the labor force adapt and gain from participating in the changing global economy.
8. Attracting and enabling foreign direct investment by both FDI receiving and FDI exporting countries will be another important way to sustain growth for the future. Japan and ASEAN member countries should review and improve their regulatory frameworks for FDI.
Areas to be strengthened for Japan-ASEAN Cooperation
9. In moving toward a regional demand-oriented economy in East Asia, Japan and ASEAN should embark upon the following areas of cooperation:
1) East Asia-wide Economic Partnership Agreement
By consolidating various existing free trade and economic partnership agreements into an integrated, single East Asia-wide agreement, greater trade and investment opportunities will be created.
2) Facilitation of Long-term Potential Areas
Investment should be facilitated in areas with long-term potential and equal benefit, e.g. soft infrastructure, such as human resources and information and communication technologies (ICT), and hard infrastructures, including domestic and cross-border ones, such as the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) Development Program, and green technologies. Public-private partnership (PPP) in infrastructure and other sectors should also be enhanced and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and community-based businesses should participate in, and gain from, these developments.
3) Financial Market Development and Integration
In order to recycle Asia’s high savings for regional investment, the Asian Bond Markets Initiative (ABMI) should be accelerated by establishing a Credit Guarantee and Investment Mechanism (CGIM) to provide guarantees for local currency bond issuance. Other means to increase confidence and interest in Asian local-currency bonds should also be considered to help the capital markets grow and mature.
4) Towards an Asian Monetary Fund (AMF)
The process of Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization (CMIM) and the establishment of the surveillance unit must be encouraged and strengthened. This has the potential to pave the way for the creation of an AMF, which can play a vital role for financial stability in the crisis by productively utilizing the large foreign reserves held by many Asian economies, and facilitate higher domestic and regional demand.
5) Exchange Rate Policy Cooperation
Japan and ASEAN should strengthen cooperation on exchange rate policy to reduce the risk of intra-regional currency misalignments. This is important because of the resurgence of capital inflows into Asia with increased global financial stability and the tightening of monetary policy as Asian economies recover.
6) Implementation of the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint and the ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership
While ASEAN should play a vital role in encouraging own market integration, Japan should help ASEAN implement both the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint and the ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership for deepening the economic integration amongst the ASEAN member countries and between them and Japan.
7) Integration of ASEAN capital markets
Japan should help ASEAN in its efforts to integrate their capital markets through technical assistance, in order to foster stronger coordination and monitoring processes at both national and regional levels within ASEAN.
8) Setting up of an ASEAN Infrastructure Investment Fund
Japan should support ASEAN in its efforts to create an ASEAN Infrastructure Investment Fund through financial and technical assistance, to strengthen economic capacity in ASEAN member countries.
9) Narrowing the development gap within ASEAN
Japan should support ASEAN in its efforts to promote effective cooperation and mutual assistance to narrow the development gap among ASEAN member countries.
10) Human resource development and education
Japan and ASEAN should stimulate investment in human resource development—such as education—particularly in science, technology and engineering.
11) Improvement in energy efficiency and promotion of renewable resources
Japan and ASEAN should also stimulate investment in green growth. Japan should support ASEAN, particularly in renewable energy development, energy conservation, and environmental improvements, as a way to jointly address climate change.
12) Improvement in food security
Japan should support ASEAN in its efforts to achieve food security, by way of strengthening a regional mechanism in support of food regulation, food control and emergency food assistance.
Increasing Role of Japan
10. Japan has traditionally been a key economic leader in the region with its investment, trade, technology transfer and official development assistance (ODA). Japan should strengthen its links with ASEAN, so that it can benefit from the region’s growth dynamism while supporting this growth through enhanced economic and financial cooperation for the integration of an East Asian Community. In this regard, Japan should pursue the following efforts:
1) Restoring sustainable growth and further opening up its market to ASEAN goods, services, investment and skilled labor.
2) Re-focusing Japan’s Official Development Assistance to support less developed ASEAN member countries in their efforts to cope with the crisis and restructure their economies towards greater integration and connectivity.
- END -
“Japan-ASEAN Cooperation amid the Financial and Economic Crisis”
to the Governments of Japan and ASEAN Member Countries
by
The 8th Japan-ASEAN Dialogue
co-sponsored by GFJ and ASEAN-ISIS
Tokyo, 10-12 September 2009
One year after the global financial crisis erupted in the United States, Japan and ASEAN have experienced adverse impacts on their economies, which have differed in scale and severity from country to country, and responded with monetary and fiscal policy expansion and financial sector-support measures. Japan and ASEAN economies have shown resilience and are now experiencing a nascent recovery, helped by government measures and expenditures which, in a number of cases, have been beyond the norm.
Looking ahead, Japan and ASEAN face challenges to ensure their recovery and growth is sustained. These challenges will mean that countries in the region may not return to the economic paradigm that existed prior to the crisis, with such a predominant dependence on external demand from markets in the West, especially the US.
Instead, Japan and ASEAN member countries must strengthen their cooperation, seek new and more diverse growth engines and rebalance their economies. In rebalancing their economies, measures to increase domestic and regional demand must be considered as the key priority for the medium to longer term. These efforts will require intensive economic and financial cooperation and will contribute to the greater integration and resilience of the Asian economy and the creation of an East Asian Community.
The 8th Japan-ASEAN Dialogue co-sponsored by the Global Forum of Japan and the ASEAN Institutes of Strategic and International Studies wishes to present its policy recommendations to the Governments of Japan and ASEAN member countries as follows:
Resilience, Transparency and Enhanced Cooperation
1. Japan and ASEAN should resist the temptation of protectionism of any form and refrain from introducing new barriers that can prevent a free flow of trade and investment. Working together and with other institutions and in intergovernmental forums such as APEC and ASEAN Plus Three, Japan and ASEAN should strengthen their monitoring work on measures that might reduce freer trade, including non-tariff barriers, and promote trade facilitation and other efforts to help increase trade and investment flows.
2. Japan and ASEAN should give consideration and support to expansion of mechanisms such as the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization (CMIM), to strengthening of financial oversight and stability, and to development of early warning systems among Asian economies.
3. A key factor to maintain and increase resilience is to strengthen governance (or government quality), compliance and transparency. This is especially needed where government expenditures have been substantially increased as a response to the crisis. It can also be a factor in attracting and enabling the flow of foreign direct investment. Japan and ASEAN should address such issues as corruption, red tape and other malpractices to improve business environments.
Towards a Balanced Growth
4. Economic and financial policies and stimulus packages are playing key roles in the present nascent recovery and should be maintained for the present so that recovery can take root. However, such policies and measures cannot be sustained indefinitely. As such, Japan and ASEAN should start to review existing fiscal and monetary policies in order to develop credible and coherent exit strategies.
5. Even as a nascent recovery is beginning, most analyses are that household consumption in the US and Europe will not resume at pre-crisis levels. Japan and ASEAN should therefore not predicate their future growth on the assumption that such markets will remain a predominant source of growth for export-oriented Asian economies. Instead, the region should seek out new markets—such as those created by the rising middle-class in emerging Asia—and aim, in the medium to longer term, to rebalance growth toward greater domestic and regional demand.
6. Recognizing this need to develop domestic and regional demand in Asia, the governments of Japan and ASEAN should pursue policies with the aim of increasing disposable income and personal consumption on a sustainable basis. In particular, ｔhey should consider fundamental reform of social safety nets to provide households with greater certainty and security about their future and, thus, help reduce precautionary savings.
7. Increasing productivity, skills and knowledge of people will be critical to rebalance the East Asian economies in the medium and long term. As such, Japan and ASEAN should continue to strengthen the capacity of their people, especially their workers. Governments must invest in education, training and other skill-building activities to help the labor force adapt and gain from participating in the changing global economy.
8. Attracting and enabling foreign direct investment by both FDI receiving and FDI exporting countries will be another important way to sustain growth for the future. Japan and ASEAN member countries should review and improve their regulatory frameworks for FDI.
Areas to be strengthened for Japan-ASEAN Cooperation
9. In moving toward a regional demand-oriented economy in East Asia, Japan and ASEAN should embark upon the following areas of cooperation:
1) East Asia-wide Economic Partnership Agreement
By consolidating various existing free trade and economic partnership agreements into an integrated, single East Asia-wide agreement, greater trade and investment opportunities will be created.
2) Facilitation of Long-term Potential Areas
Investment should be facilitated in areas with long-term potential and equal benefit, e.g. soft infrastructure, such as human resources and information and communication technologies (ICT), and hard infrastructures, including domestic and cross-border ones, such as the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) Development Program, and green technologies. Public-private partnership (PPP) in infrastructure and other sectors should also be enhanced and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and community-based businesses should participate in, and gain from, these developments.
3) Financial Market Development and Integration
In order to recycle Asia’s high savings for regional investment, the Asian Bond Markets Initiative (ABMI) should be accelerated by establishing a Credit Guarantee and Investment Mechanism (CGIM) to provide guarantees for local currency bond issuance. Other means to increase confidence and interest in Asian local-currency bonds should also be considered to help the capital markets grow and mature.
4) Towards an Asian Monetary Fund (AMF)
The process of Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization (CMIM) and the establishment of the surveillance unit must be encouraged and strengthened. This has the potential to pave the way for the creation of an AMF, which can play a vital role for financial stability in the crisis by productively utilizing the large foreign reserves held by many Asian economies, and facilitate higher domestic and regional demand.
5) Exchange Rate Policy Cooperation
Japan and ASEAN should strengthen cooperation on exchange rate policy to reduce the risk of intra-regional currency misalignments. This is important because of the resurgence of capital inflows into Asia with increased global financial stability and the tightening of monetary policy as Asian economies recover.
6) Implementation of the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint and the ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership
While ASEAN should play a vital role in encouraging own market integration, Japan should help ASEAN implement both the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint and the ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership for deepening the economic integration amongst the ASEAN member countries and between them and Japan.
7) Integration of ASEAN capital markets
Japan should help ASEAN in its efforts to integrate their capital markets through technical assistance, in order to foster stronger coordination and monitoring processes at both national and regional levels within ASEAN.
8) Setting up of an ASEAN Infrastructure Investment Fund
Japan should support ASEAN in its efforts to create an ASEAN Infrastructure Investment Fund through financial and technical assistance, to strengthen economic capacity in ASEAN member countries.
9) Narrowing the development gap within ASEAN
Japan should support ASEAN in its efforts to promote effective cooperation and mutual assistance to narrow the development gap among ASEAN member countries.
10) Human resource development and education
Japan and ASEAN should stimulate investment in human resource development—such as education—particularly in science, technology and engineering.
11) Improvement in energy efficiency and promotion of renewable resources
Japan and ASEAN should also stimulate investment in green growth. Japan should support ASEAN, particularly in renewable energy development, energy conservation, and environmental improvements, as a way to jointly address climate change.
12) Improvement in food security
Japan should support ASEAN in its efforts to achieve food security, by way of strengthening a regional mechanism in support of food regulation, food control and emergency food assistance.
Increasing Role of Japan
10. Japan has traditionally been a key economic leader in the region with its investment, trade, technology transfer and official development assistance (ODA). Japan should strengthen its links with ASEAN, so that it can benefit from the region’s growth dynamism while supporting this growth through enhanced economic and financial cooperation for the integration of an East Asian Community. In this regard, Japan should pursue the following efforts:
1) Restoring sustainable growth and further opening up its market to ASEAN goods, services, investment and skilled labor.
2) Re-focusing Japan’s Official Development Assistance to support less developed ASEAN member countries in their efforts to cope with the crisis and restructure their economies towards greater integration and connectivity.
- END -
Monday, December 29, 2008
Thailand's turmoil delays border work
Thailand's turmoil delays border work
Written by Cheang Sokha
Tuesday, 16 December 2008
ONGOING political turmoil in Bangkok has obliged the Thai-Cambodian Joint Border Commission - charged with marking the neighbouring countries' 805 kilometres of shared border - to delay demarcating and de-mining the contested area near the Preah Vihear temple, officials said.
"We cannot do anything right now until we receive approval from the Thai parliament," the head of the border committee, Var Kimhong, told the Post on Monday. "We do not know when the approval will be made."
On November 12, Foreign Minister Hor Namhong and his Thai counterpart agreed during a meeting in Siem Reap to reduce the troop buildup along the shared border and allow the JBC to commence its work in the area by mid-December.
"The current situation in Thailand does not in any way affect Thailand's firm commitment to pursuing peaceful settlement of the matter through the existing bilateral framework and boundary mechanism," said a December 9 statement issued by the Thai Foreign Ministry through its embassy in Phnom Penh.
Meas Yoeun, deputy military commander stationed at Preah Vihear, told the Post that he had received no recent orders pertaining to the work of the JBC.
"The situation along the border near the temple is normal, and troops on both sides have reduced [levels] to 30 troops each at the front line near the temple," Meas Yoeun said.
Phay Siphan, a secretary of state at the Council of Ministers, said there is no schedule set for the next meeting of the JCB and this will not change until newly appointed Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva takes office.
Written by Cheang Sokha
Tuesday, 16 December 2008
ONGOING political turmoil in Bangkok has obliged the Thai-Cambodian Joint Border Commission - charged with marking the neighbouring countries' 805 kilometres of shared border - to delay demarcating and de-mining the contested area near the Preah Vihear temple, officials said.
"We cannot do anything right now until we receive approval from the Thai parliament," the head of the border committee, Var Kimhong, told the Post on Monday. "We do not know when the approval will be made."
On November 12, Foreign Minister Hor Namhong and his Thai counterpart agreed during a meeting in Siem Reap to reduce the troop buildup along the shared border and allow the JBC to commence its work in the area by mid-December.
"The current situation in Thailand does not in any way affect Thailand's firm commitment to pursuing peaceful settlement of the matter through the existing bilateral framework and boundary mechanism," said a December 9 statement issued by the Thai Foreign Ministry through its embassy in Phnom Penh.
Meas Yoeun, deputy military commander stationed at Preah Vihear, told the Post that he had received no recent orders pertaining to the work of the JBC.
"The situation along the border near the temple is normal, and troops on both sides have reduced [levels] to 30 troops each at the front line near the temple," Meas Yoeun said.
Phay Siphan, a secretary of state at the Council of Ministers, said there is no schedule set for the next meeting of the JCB and this will not change until newly appointed Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva takes office.
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