Delegates to the ongoing 13th annual meeting of the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum (APPF) in Ha Long city, Vietnam, attached importance to beef up cooperation on dealing with such diseases as bird flu and HIV/AIDS, and inter-cultural exchanges.

"With increased trade and movement of people across borders, the spread of infectious diseases has become a global problem. Thus, cooperation among countries to respond to epidemic outbreaks without causing negative impacts on trade and investment, the momentum of regional economic development, is urgent," the Vietnamese delegation stated Wednesday at the meeting's session on Asia-Pacific cooperation in addressing regional issues of general interest.

Regarding regional and international cooperation against infectious diseases, the delegation stressed the importance of the financial and technical support of developed countries for developing ones, and the role of international organizations, including the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program in producing vaccines and helping countries cope with epidemics.

Such cooperation is of great importance in the context that bird flu, which has killed dozens of people and over 100 million poultry in some Asian countries since late 2003, may become a global pandemic with grave socioeconomic consequences as warned by the WHO, and that over five million people in the world were infected with HIV/AIDS in 2004, raising the total number to some 39.4 million.

At the session, representatives from many countries also thoroughly touched issues about exchange and cooperation among cultures, saying that dialogue among cultures and civilizations onan equal footing, which is becoming a norm in the relations among individuals as well as communities from different cultures and civilizations, helps avoid undesired tensions or even conflicts, and minimize negative impacts of globalization.

When facilitating inter-cultural exchanges, countries need to "overcome exclusive and nationalistic approaches to other cultures that spring from lack of understanding, tolerance and respect for diverse cultures, and to ensure that the exchanges do not hurt unique culture and subsequently their cultural identity," said the South Korean delegation.

Besides infectious diseases and cultural exchanges, parliamentarians, during the session, mentioned other issues, namely environment, resources for sustainable development and transnational crimes.

At the 13th APPF meeting, which lasts from Monday to Thursday in Vietnam's northern Ha Long city, over 100 delegates from 23 countries are to center their discussions on five main items, namely tsunamis, political and security issues, economic and trade issues, Asia-Pacific cooperation in addressing regional issues of general interest, and future works of the APPF which was established in 1993.

Source: Xinhua