DPM highlights sustainable use, management of water resource in Mekong River

Photo: VGP/Hai Minh

The Deputy PM highlighted the significance of the meeting as it marked the birth of a new cooperation mechanism between Mekong-Lancang countries and the first time all six countries along the Mekong River met to discuss joint efforts for sustainable development in the Mekong sub-region.

He supposed that the MLC may contribute to promoting sustainable development in the Greater Mekong Sub-region, strengthening the neighborly relations among the six countries, and helping them implement the UN’s sustainable development goals until 2030, and contribute to deepening the ASEAN-China strategic partnership.

To bring into full play its potentials, the new cooperative mechanism needs to concentrate on scientific and sustainable management and use of the water resource in the Mekong Delta, enhancing economic connection in the sub-region and facilitating trans-border trade, investment and tourism.

Stressing the importance of agriculture to the sustainable development of nations in the Mekong-Lancang, he asserted that Viet Nam is willing to coordinate with other countries through stepping up the application of new technologies, increasing productivity, and forming agricultural value chains in the sub-region, towards a sustainable agriculture that is competitive and adaptable to climate change, thus ensuring a harmony between food security and water resource security.

Viet Nam is ready to work with China in developing a joint project to establish a centre on Mekong-Lancang water resources cooperation to share information and improve the management skills on water resources in the Mekong River.

The Vietnamese Deputy PM highly appreciates China’s recent decision of increasing the release of water in the upper Mekong River to address the severe drought and saltwater intrusion in the lower part of the river, adding that the decision reflected a good start for the Mekong-Lancang Cooperation mechanism.

He also underlined the need for the MLC to harmoniously coordinate with other cooperation mechanisms and frameworks, especially the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) and the Mekong River Commission (MRC).

By Thuy Dung