Workshop suggests ways for enhancing Indochinese countries’ ties
A workshop was co-organised in Vientiane on September 25 by the Lao Academy of Social and Economic Sciences, the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences (VASS), and the Royal Academy of Cambodia, suggesting measures for enhancing the three countries’ cooperation in the new global context.
VASS Vice President Assoc. Prof. Dr Ta Minh Tuan said that the three countries’ relations have been growing unceasingly over the past years, but they are facing many difficulties and challenges, including the competition among powerful countries, conflicts in various places around the world, and non-traditional security challenges such as trans-national crimes, environmental pollution, energy security, food security, water resource security, infectious disease outbreaks, and climate change.
Such challenges have strongly affected not only each of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia but also their collaboration, he noted, perceiving that they can effectively cope with those challenges by cooperating closely with one another on the basis of political trust, equality, and sincerity.
Participants listened to reports and speeches on the regional and global development trends that affect the development of the three countries and their cooperation. They analysed the countries’ foreign policies in the current context, and also proposed measures for strengthening trilateral ties amid the specific context of each country, the region, and the world.
Initiated in 2012, the annual workshop has become an important and regular forum in the field of social sciences and humanities for the countries’ officials, experts, and scientists. Its results serve as a scientific basis for Vietnamese, Lao, and Cambodian agencies to form and submit policy advice to their respective countries’ Governments to further tap into cooperation potential.