HANOI – Vietnamese Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Quoc Dung has suggested Asean finalise a travel corridor arrangement framework soon at the Asean Joint Consultative Meeting (JCM) yesterday.
The event took place via videoconference under the chair of Brunei, which holds the Asean chairmanship this year, the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported.
Participants in the meeting recognised the progress in building the Asean Community over the last six months, despite the complex Covid-19 situation in the region.
They affirmed their countries’ support for Brunei to promote Asean initiatives and priorities for this year.
In particular, they agreed on a roadmap for building the Asean Community’s post-2025 vision and on the establishment of a high-level drafting group this year.
The meeting also concurred in building an Asean master plan on the Fourth Industrial Revolution and accelerating the Strategic and Holistic Initiative to Link Asean Responses to Emergencies and Disasters (Asean Shield).
Officials also agreed to step up the procurement of Covid-19 vaccines via Unicef and the Covax facility for the member countries, asking Asean to promptly use US$10.5 million (RM43.4 million) from its Covid-19 response fund to purchase vaccines.
Stressing on the importance of sustainable recovery, the countries highlighted the need for the entire bloc’s engagement in implementing the Asean Comprehensive Recovery Framework, and for supporting enterprises, vulnerable groups and remote areas in the region.
At the meeting, they welcomed and approved Vietnam’s initiative to organise an Asean forum on sub-regional cooperation in the third quarter of this year that will focus on narrowing the development gap among sub-regions for comprehensive recovery and sustainable development.
They also highly valued the outcomes of the regional conference on the implementation of the Initiative for Asean Integration for 2021-2025, held on May 19 under the chair of Vietnam.
In his remarks, Dung held that, in the current context, Asean should prioritise recovering and promoting connectivity by implementing the Asean Comprehensive Recovery Framework and finalising an Asean travel corridor arrangement framework to facilitate travel within the bloc.
He also pointed out the Covid-19 pandemic’s impact of widening the development gap among sub-regions in Asean.
He called on member countries to assist remote areas, including the Mekong sub-region, to recover from the pandemic and keep up with the common development pace in the grouping. – Bernama, June 18, 2021
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