On August 1, the ASEAN + 3 Senior Officials Meeting (China, Japan and the Republic of Korea) and the Senior Officials Meeting with the 8 East Asian Summit (EAS) partners (China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, India, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Russia) were held in Singapore to discuss preparations for the 19th ASEAN + 3 Foreign Ministers Meeting and the 8th East Asia Summit Foreign Ministers' Meeting (8th EAS FMM), set to take place on August 4.

Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Quoc Dung, Head of ASEAN-Vietnam SOM, led a Vietnamese delegation to the meetings.

In his speech, Dung affirmed Vietnam's commitment to accelerate the substantial and effective ASEAN + 3 and EAS process. He said he hopes that the partners would continue to support the central role of the regional bloc and redouble their efforts to consolidate an open, transparent and rule-based regional architecture for peace, stability and development in the region.

He also assured Vietnam’s active supports to and its readiness to promote priority cooperation areas of ASEAN + 3 and EAS, and work hand in hand with other countries to contribute to the success of the ASEAN + 3 Senior Officials Meeting and EAS.

At the ASEAN + 3 Senior Officials Meeting, countries continued emphasizing the importance of ASEAN +3 as a tool towards the long-term goal of building a community in East Asia after 20 years of formation and development, describing this as an integral part of the regional cooperation architecture.

The ASEAN+3 senior officials noted with satisfaction the outcomes of the implementation of the ASEAN Plus Three Work Plan for the period 2018-2022 and the recommendations of East Asia Vision Group II (EAVGII) Report.

The meeting reached a high consensus on the need to intensify efforts to complete the Regional Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) on schedule and to make continued the ASEAN +3 contributions to keeping the momentum for regional economic integration and market opening going.

In addition, the officials also agreed upon the agenda and draft documents , which will be reported to the 19th ASEAN + 3 Foreign Ministers Meeting, and discussed preparatory work for the 21st ASEAN + 3 Summit slated for November.

Meanwhile, the EAS Senior Officials Meeting highlighted the important role of EAS as a forum for leaders to promote dialogues on strategic political and economic issues, which deliver acknowledged benefits to regional peace, stability and cooperation.

The meeting also highly appreciated the initial positive results while affirming commitments and attention given to appropriate resources for the implementation of the Manila Action Plan for the period 2018-2022.

The officials underscored the need to continue to step up specific and practical cooperation in areas of common interest and priority, such as counter-terrorism and extreme violence, maritime cooperation, regional economic integration and connectivity, macroeconomic stability, development of small and medium sized enterprise (SMEs), health care, climate change adaptation, disaster risk management, food security, cultural and people-to-people exchanges.

The EAS nations consented to bolster cooperation on priority areas in the Manila Action Plan and make more specific cooperation proposals on maritime cooperation, health care, and education, the environment, natural disaster response, energy, and e-commerce.

In preparation for the 8th EAS Ministerial Meeting on 4 August and the 13th EAS Summit, set to take place in November, the senior officials discussed and agreed on the documents to be reported to Foreign Ministers before submission to senior leaders regarding the promotion of EAS cooperation in smart city development, anti-terrorism, fight against plastic waste pollution at sea, nuclear and information technology security.

Source: vov.vn