Vietnam plays active role in ASEAN-US cooperation

Ambassador Nguyen Hoanh Nam, Head of the Vietnamese Permanent Representative Delegation to ASEAN said Vietnam has always coordinated closely with other ASEAN member countries and the US to promote cooperation areas of mutual interest.

Vietnam will work with the US and ASEAN member states to speed up two initiatives on establishing an ASEAN-US centre for small and medium enterprises and a centre for studying climate change issues, which were proposed by former Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung at the last ASEAN Summit.

The US Ambassador to ASEAN, Nina Hachigian, attested to the strategic partnership of the two sides in many areas, including economy, politics, marine security and climate change. She revealed the US and ASEAN will continue to map out relation development plans in compliance with the US-ASEAN Summit which opened in February 2016 in Sunnylands, California.

The meeting reviewed the ASEAN-US partnership over the past time and discussed measures to further develop collaboration in the time to come.

Delegates also scruitinised the implementation of the US-ASEAN Plan of Action on strengthening the partnership between the two sides during 2016-2020.

Trans-national issues such as anti-terrorism, nuclear non-proliferation, cyber security and human trafficking were also debated at the event.

The ASEAN-US dialogue relations officially began in 1977 and the two sides set up their strengthened partnership in 2005.

The US is one of ASEAN’s largest trade and investment partners with bilateral trade turnover hitting US$216 billion in 2014, accounting for 8.2 percent of the bloc’s total trade. Investment from the US to ASEAN reached US$226 billion in the same year.