Thailand to host ACD forums in 2015

BANGKOK, October 20 (TNA) - Hailing the success of this year's Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) summit held in Kuwait earlier this week, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said Saturday she has proposed that Thailand host an ACD summit and related forums in 2015, when the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is also scheduled to be formed, to boost cooperation and benefit the two groupings. Speaking during her weekly address, Yingluck said that she had an opportunity to discuss with several government leaders during this year's ACD summit in Kuwait held from October 15-17, and that the discussions focused on economic, trade and investment, poverty, technology, education, public health, food security and energy problems prevailing in Asia. Yingluck acknowledged that there is a need for a connectivity between Thailand and other member countries of the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and to the Asian region as a whole in order to widen Thailand's markets, as the Kingdom is prepared to become a "kitchen of the World’ and needs energy supply. In order to materialise the goal, the prime minister revealed that concerned agencies have been assigned to gather more details for discussions at the next ACD forums, and that the Kuwaiti government has proposed two billion US dollars for investing in several infrastructure development projects in the region and announced to initially allocate some 300 million US dollars of the totally-proposed fund for solving regional food problems. According to the Thai premier, she had also discussed with her Kuwaiti counterpart H.H. Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah, during which she informed him on her government's policy on solving violent unrest in the Thai deep South in peaceful means and she expects that the Kuwaiti government would grant more scholarships for Thai Muslim students to further their studies in the Gulf state in the future. On trade, industry and on long-term energy security, a joint committee at the ministerial level will be set up and the issues will be raised for discussions at an ACD ministerial meeting to be then hosted by Thailand. (TNA)