Phnom Penh (FN), June 16 – At the 9th Cambodia-Laos-Myanmar-Vietnam Summit (CLMV 9) in Bangkok, Thailand, Prime Minister of Cambodia and three other CLMV leaders have made firm commitments to strengthening relationships on behalf of neighbors for mutual benefits, speaking in the press conference on CLMV outcomes and action plans following the summit on Saturday.

Prime Minister Hun Sen said he was honored to chair the 9th CLMV Summit with fruitful results under the theme "For Greater Economic Integration and Connectivity".

According to the premier, this was first time that the CLMV Summit was organized by Thailand and led by Cambodia. He expressed his profound thanks to the Thai Government for facilitating the meeting.

Over the past 14 years since CLMV's establishment, CLMV has substantially developed economy, physical and digital infrastructure, and trade and investment; reduced poverty; promoted human resource development, and especially people-to-people relations.

CLMV leaders have discussed deeply the key challenges and committed to enhancing the efficiency and roles of CLMV in achieving sustainable development goals and reducing development gap among CLMV countries and in the ASEAN region.

They discussed on eight priority sectors, including transport, trade-investment facilitation, industry, tourism, human resources development, agriculture, energy, information technology and telecommunications.

To achieve the goals, the four leaders reaffirmed their commitment to deepen cooperation and promote CLMV's economic and people relations as follows: (1) promote infrastructure to boost transport cooperation; develop border market networks and facilitate CLMV's investment and trade in each other's markets; (2) focus on economic and industrial development; reduce technical barriers on trade; support small and medium enterprises and smart entrepreneurship; (3) promote tourism and public private partnerships in CLMV countries; (4) promote human resource capacity by exchanging experience and joint programs on technical and vocational education and trainings.

CLMV Summit, first held in 2004, is an open cooperation mechanism aiming to promote potential and advantages of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, and call for support from other ASEAN countries as well as partners for the four countries.
=FRESH NEWS