Participants in the 53rd meeting of the Initiative for ASEAN Integration (IAI) Task Force (Photo: Vietnam’s permanent mission to ASEAN)
Jakarta (VNA) – Cooperation to narrow the gap of development
in ASEAN has gained positive strides recently, members of the Initiative for
ASEAN Integration (IAI) Task Force said at their 53rd meeting at the ASEAN
Secretariat’s headquarters in Jakarta, Indonesia, last weekend.
According to Vietnam’s permanent mission to
ASEAN, the implementation of the IAI Work Plan III since the beginning of 2017
has reeled in encouraging outcomes in terms of both quantity and quality.
By the end of September, 11 of the 26
cooperation lines and six support areas had been carried out through 22
projects worth 8.28 million USD in total.
In the five prioritised fields under the work
plan, IAI projects have focused on dealing with problems facing Cambodia, Laos,
Myanmar and Vietnam (CLMV) such as agricultural product safety, post-harvest
loss reduction, e-commerce development, building policy framework to attract
FDI into small- and medium-sized enterprises, and English language training.
Notably, the monitoring and assessment of
projects have been based on not only the project number or the funding, but
also their meeting of concrete criteria for each cooperation lines.
The CLMV countries have also played a more
active role in building projects matching local demand. Ten of the 13 new IAI
projects which are being designed or about to begin were proposed by
specialised agencies of the CLMV nations.
The Vietnamese mission said supporting development
gap reduction in ASEAN is also a priority of the bloc’s partners which have
vowed to sponsor 7.38 million USD for 11 projects under the IAI Work Plan III.
As the head of the IAI Task Force in 2017 – the
first year of the IAI Work Plan III implementation, Vietnam has coordinated
with other countries to synchronously take multiple measures to facilitate the
work.
Since the start of the year, the Vietnamese
mission chaired three regular meetings of the IAI Task Force to discuss ways to
step up the work plan implementation. It has also made use of tens of other
meetings between ASEAN and partners to introduce the IAI, added the IAI-related
content to the bloc’s cooperation programmes and plans with partners, and
worked to mobilise funding for IAI and relevant projects.
The mission has also suggested various measures
in order to improve coordination and sense of responsibility of the CLMV’s
specialised agencies in the IAI implementation.
Adopted at the 28th ASEAN Summit in September
2016, the IAI Work Plan III specifies five priorities for cooperation in
development gap narrowing between 2016-2020, namely food and agriculture; trade
facilitation; micro, small and medium enterprises; education; and health and
well-being.-VNA