Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh attends Blue Economy and Finance Forum in Monaco

The forum is a special event held on the sidelines of the third UN Ocean Conference to showcase the key actors involved in developing the enabling environment that will allow investments in the millions and billions to make this blue transformation a reality.

By gathering experts, policymakers, investors and innovators from around the world, the forum will highlight and promote the critical role that sustainable investment, cutting-edge innovation, and forward-thinking policies play in ensuring the long-term health and prosperity of our oceans and economies alike.

The forum will serve as a platform to exchange ideas, foster collaboration, and showcase the latest developments in the blue economy, with a clear focus on creating a resilient and thriving ocean ecosystem that benefits present and future generations.

The OECD predicts the economic value of the ocean will surpass US$3 trillion by 2030, making it the world's fifth-largest economy. The ocean is crucial for global trade, food security, and the development of sustainable energy solutions such as offshore wind power and decarbonized maritime transport. Additionally, marine genetic resources present vast potential for sectors like medicine and agriculture.

However, to realize this potential, international cooperation is needed to prevent resource depletion, slow ocean acidification, protect marine ecosystems, reduce overfishing, and curb ocean pollution. Ensuring fair access to the benefits of the blue economy and safeguarding marine resources is critical to creating a sustainable future.

Addressing the forum, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh pointed out the fact that conservation and sustainable use of the ocean remains the least funded, with less than US$10 billion invested between 2015 and 2019—far short of the estimated US$175 billion needed annually.

Given the fact, Pham suggested increasing investment in research, development, and application of marine science, including promoting technology transfer, research cooperation, sharing experiences, and joining hands to build a global marine data system.

He underlined the need to increase the mobilization and effective use of resources for sustainable development of the marine economy to create a blue ocean financial ecosystem.

The Vietnamese Prime Minister called for efforts to strengthen intercontinental, interregional, inter-national connections and global governance of the blue oceans, in the spirit of taking the United Nations as the center, international law as the foundation, and international cooperation as the driving force to form blue ocean growth poles that connect global marine economic centres. He affirmed that Viet Nam is ready to participate in and actively contribute to developing this important network in the East Sea - a strategic sea of the world.

Pham once again reaffirmed Viet Nam's strong commitment to being a reliable partner, always ready to join global efforts to protect the oceans, participate in and lead maritime cooperation mechanisms./.