The upcoming 16th Great Mekong Subregion (GMS) Ministerial Meeting
scheduled for August 19-20 in Hanoi will focus discussions on
challenges faced by the subregion in the next decade, said a senior
official from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
Granting an interview to Vietnam News Agency, Kunio Senda, Director
General of the ADB’s Southeast Asia Department, said the challenges are
transforming the GMS transport corridors into genuine economic corridors
and enabling the GMS to tap more fully into the opportunities that the
current economic resurgence and dynamism in Asia offers.
The critical issues include how to effectively link the GMS with India
and the rest of South Asia, in a similar manner that it is now
benefiting from its increasing links with China, a GMS member, in terms
of increased exports, supply of manufactured goods and FDI; and how to
strengthen complementarities and synergies with other regional
cooperation initiatives, particularly ASEAN and ASEAN+3, he said.
Another challenge faced by the GMS is to address the risks of global
warming and climate change. “It is important to integrate climate change
adaptation and mitigation measures in both national and subsregional
development efforts. Among the possible directions of efforts in this
regard are, for instance, the further development of railway links as
substitute to fossil fuel-based transport modes and the development of
renewable energy sources,” he said.
The GMS
countries must effectively address other risks usually associated with
increased connectivity, including communicable diseases, human
trafficking and transnational crime, and biodiversity losses, he added.
In addition, the subregion also faces challenges
posed by its changing demographics and increased urbanisation, including
human resource development, education, labour reforms, migration and
protection of migrant workers.
The ADB official also
dealt with the GMS’s increased mobilisation of private investments for
its economic cooperation programme, including public-private
partnerships.
He expressed the confidence in the
GMS’s settlement of challenges with assistance from the ADB, saying that
despite the challenges faced by the GMS region in the next decade, ADB
is optimistic that the GMS Programme would continue to move forward and
will be better equipped to deal with a rapidly changing regional and
global landscape under its new Strategic Framework (SF) for the
2012-2022 GMS Programme.
“The maturity we have
gained as a cooperation programme, along with a well thought of new
strategic framework, will ensure that we can effectively help address
the challenges and expand the frontiers of out cooperation among the six
GMS countries,” he affirmed.
ADB will endeavour to
address and maintain its relevance vis-à-vis emerging trends and issues,
and continue to help the Mekong countries achieve their vision of an
integrated, prosperous and harmonious subregion, even in the midst if a
rapidly changing and challenging regional and global landscape, he
added.
As a regional institution, ADB will continue to
coordinate with key GMS stakeholders and particularly with the Mekong
River Commission (MRC) to promote efforts to ensure the sustainable
development of the Mekong subregion.
According to
Kunio Senga, transport improvement leads to trade improvement and
eventually translating into improved quality of life of people in the
GMS. Definitely, the transformation of transport corridors into
full-pledged economic corridors will require improved transport and
trade facilitation in the subregion.
“The countries
are now working intently on a programme of action for transport and
trade facilitation, which aims to expand and deepen exchange of traffic
rights, improve border procedures and coordinated border management, and
strengthen sanitary regime for GMS trade,” he added.
The ADB official stressed that the GMS Programme recognises the key
role of building strategic alliances and partnerships with other
international organisations, particularly with ASEAN and the MRC.
As the GMS Programme is the principal facilitating regional
cooperation mechanism for the subregion, it needs to work more to avoid
duplication and ensure complementarities with other subregional
cooperation initiatives that also operate in two or more GMS countries
such as the Ayeyawaddy-Chao Phrya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy
(ACMECS), the ASEAN-Mekong Basin Development Cooperation (AMBDC) and the
Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam (CLV) Development Triangle.
The GMS comprises China and five Southeast Asian countries, namely Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam./.
