Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung made this statement while attending the fifth Cambodia-Laos-Myanmar-Vietnam (CLMV 5) Summit, which took place in Phnom Penh on November 16.

PM Dung said that after six years of development, the CLMV cooperation has moved from providing mechanism to stimulating cooperative activity in specific area.

He noted that this cooperation is yet to meet the four countries’ aspirations and match their potential, stressing the slow implementation of cooperative projects due to difficulties in mobilizing capital and weak capacity.

At the summit, PM Dung and his Cambodian, Lao and Myanmar counterparts reviewed the results of cooperation since the fourth CLMV Summit in Hanoi in 2008 in such fields as trade and investment, transport, agriculture, industry and energy, tourism and human resource development.

The fourth countries have made headway toward practical cooperation since then, especially with Vietnam establishing the CLMV Scholarship Fund.

To boost the search for capital sources to fund CLMV projects, the prime ministers approved a list of 16 top priority projects in the four countries.

They agreed to adopt a Joint Statement with strong determination to boost cooperation within the CLMV mechanism for peace, stability and prosperity in the Mekong sub-region, and narrow the development gap between CLMV and other ASEAN member countries.

The prime ministers also agreed to hold the next CLMV Summit in Laos in 2012.