OECD Southeast Asia Ministerial Forum 2022 opens in Hanoi
WVR/VNA - The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Southeast Asia Ministerial Forum 2022 opened in Hanoi on October 17, 2022.
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| OECD Southeast Asia Ministerial Forum 2022: Themed "Connecting Regions: Partnership for Resilient and Sustainable Supply Chains," the event was co-organized by the OECD, the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Australian Embassy in Vietnam. (Photo: WVR/Nguyen Hong) |
Themed "Connecting Regions: Partnership for Resilient and Sustainable Supply Chains," the event was co-organized by the OECD, the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Australian Embassy in Vietnam.
It was the initiative of Vietnam and Australia as the co-chairs of the OECD-run Southeast Asia Regional Programme (SEARP) and the first significant event of the program in the 2022-2025 period.
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| Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son spoke at the OECD Southeast Asia Ministerial Forum 2022. (Photo: WVR/Nguyen Hong) |
In his remarks, Vietnamese Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son expressed his hope that participants will look into the causes behind disruption in supply chains and their impacts on the global economy, as well as the recovery and shift of the supply chains in the time ahead.
He suggested them propose policies and measures to enhance the resilience and self-reliance of economies and identify cooperation orientations between the OECD and Southeast Asian nations.
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| OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann commended Vietnam's co-chairmanship of the SEARP. (Photo: WVR/Nguyen Hong) |
OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann commended Vietnam's co-chairmanship of the SEARP for the first time, saying it reflects the confidence of OECD member countries and other nations in the region in Vietnam's capacity to link the OECD with the area.
Lauding Vietnam's active contributions to the SEARP as the co-chair, OECD Secretary-General Cormann pledged to continue coordinating with Vietnam in promoting cooperation between the OECD and Southeast Asian nations and realizing the OECD-ASEAN action plan.
He asked the participants to discuss the potential of regional economies and the support of OECD countries in the Southeast Asian region.
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| Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh stressed the significance of Southeast Asia to the global economy. (Photo: WVR/Nguyen Hong) |
Addressing the Forum, Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh stressed the significance of Southeast Asia to the global economy, saying that with a population of 660 million, the region is expected to become the world's fourth-largest economy by 2030.
As the co-chair of the SEARP for 2022-2025, he affirmed that Vietnam stands ready to contribute to forging cooperation between the OECD and Southeast Asia in a more comprehensive, effective, practical, and sustainable manner.
Deputy Prime MinisterMinh suggested intensifying supply chain cooperation between the two sides in a stable, sustainable, and fair way and utilizing the existing economic networks, especially the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and free trade agreements between Southeast Asia and the OECD.
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| Senator Tim Ayres, Australia's Co-Minister for Trade and Manufacturing, emphasized the importance of the Forum. (Photo: WVR/Nguyen Hong)
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The Deputy Prime Minister called on the OECD countries to help Southeast Asia bring its potential in the digital economy, high-tech agriculture, and innovation into full play and consider coordination in developing digital and farm produce supply chains.
He emphasized that the Vietnamese Government will continue to facilitate investment in such priority areas as high-tech, IT, supporting industries, smart agriculture, environmental protection, renewable energy, and infrastructure in service of social welfare.
Deputy Prime Minister Minh hoped that FDI firms from the OECD countries and other Southeast Asian nations would help Vietnam accelerate its industrialization and modernization process, especially in personnel training, research development, innovation, and technology transfer, thus turning Vietnam into a center in regional and global value chains.
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| Delegates exchanged on the sidelines of the Forum. (Photo: WVR/Nguyen Hong) |
He also called on the OECD to assist Southeast Asia in upgrading infrastructure and building ASEAN into a logistics center, including the logistics complex in Vietnam's northern province of Vinh Phuc.
"We hope that the OECD will help Vietnamese small-and medium-sized enterprises in accessing international capital markets, transferring technologies, improving administration capacity and competitiveness, developing key products and building strong brands," he continued.
The Deputy Prime Minister suggested the two sides effectively implement the OECD-ASEAN Memorandum of Understanding, particularly in priority areas like tax, trade facilitation, investment, digital transformation, and personnel training.
He stressed that maintaining a stable environment and ensuring the circulation of goods through international waters, including the East Sea, is both the right and task of all countries.
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| Delegates to the OECD Southeast Asia Ministerial Forum 2022. (Photo: WVR/Nguyen Hong) |
Deputy Prime Minister Minh expressed his hope that comprehensive, feasible solutions will be raised at the Forum to advance and deepen the relations between the OECD and Southeast Asia for peace, stability, cooperation, and development in the region and worldwide.
Koh Poh Tiong, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Saigon Beer, Alcohol and Beverage (Sabeco): The theme of the Forum is Connecting Region: Partnerships for Resilient and Sustainable Supply Chain, and there have been good discussions on actions to contribute to the overall development of the economy, such as free trade agreements, digitalization, policies, etc. These are important for businesses' globalization efforts, which are crucial moving into the challenging future. As a representative from the private sector, I think highly of the Forum's facilitation for such discussions. Vietnam has been resilient through the significant challenges of COVID-19 in different aspects, thanks to the wise directions and measures from the Government. But the future remains "gloomy." An ideal economy, to me, is the balance of 3 elements: low inflation, high employment rate, and reasonable interest rate. With many ongoing macroeconomic and geo-political issues, we are at constant risk of this balance being shaken, with increased raw material costs, disruption of the supply chain, scarcity of quality labor, etc. A change in people's hearts is needed to avoid personal interests, conflicts, and hidden agendas so that the world would be willing to work together to drive a better future. The Forum creates a platform for initiating efforts to put together the minds and capabilities of public and private sectors across countries for supply chain strength. Our business has had experience in and truly understands the value of this concept, with the partnership between the Government of Vietnam – from the public sector and ThaiBev – an ASEAN multinational business for the development of SABECO. Taking from our own stories, I appreciate the Forum for allowing more "working together" successes to happen. |
(Source: WVR/VNA)
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