Thai PM hails 4th Mekong-Japan Summit

TOKYO, April 21 (TNA) - Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has hailed the 4th Mekong-Japan Summit, held in Tokyo from April 20-21, a success, saying that she plans to assign concerned Thai government agencies to proceed with a concluded strategy aimed at developing countries along the Mekong River delta with Japan. Speaking to the Thai News Agency on Saturday following the end of the summit between leaders of member countries of the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS), including Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar and Thailand, and Japan, Yingluck insisted that the summit has achieved a great success, as the Tokyo Strategy for Mekong-Japan Cooperation was endorsed, calling for Japan to work with the GMS countries over the next three years. According to the Thai premier, the agreed strategy contains three pillars: The first enhances connectivity among the GMS countries, which Japan has placed importance in transportation and logistics routes linking together the GMS nations. The second promotes comprehensive development, including trade and investment in the GMS. The third pillar involves environmental development, quality of life of children and women and food security in the region. The Thai prime minister said that Thai parties concerned will be assigned to perform the tasks within three years, and that she had expressed her intention to work with Tokyo in further developing GMS nations and in inviting Japanese business operators to co-invest on developing the Tavoy deep seaport and an industrial estate in Myanmar. Regarding financial assistance amounting 77 million U.S. dollars to be given by Thailand for the development purposes of neighbouring GMS countries, Premier Yingluck noted that the assistance will be spent mostly on joint technical studies and training of small and medium-sized enterprises or SMEs to prepare them for the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015, as all the GMS member countries, except China, are also member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).#END