Vietnam promoting outer- and intra-ASEAN cooperation: Vietnamese PM

Vietnam is actively broadening and deepening all-round cooperation among the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and between the block and its partners, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung told Xinhua in an exclusive interview on Sunday.

"Regarding the development of relations between ASEAN and its partners including China, Vietnam, with available fine traditional ties with these nations, has been ceaselessly endeavoring to accelerate and expand multi-faceted cooperation between ASEAN and the partners for peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region and the world at large," Dung stated.

Vietnam is also taking lead in narrowing gap, and looking forward to even and sustainable development among the ASEAN, grouping Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, he said, noting that "unity in diversity", one of ASEAN's outstanding features, has helped the block overcome many difficulties and gain a lot of achievements.

Vietnam has actively participated in the process of constructing the ASEAN Community based on the three pillars of economic cooperation, political and security cooperation and socio- cultural cooperation.

To establish the community, "ASEAN nations should step up regional linkage and cooperation, foster even and sustainable development among the block's members, and expand multi-faceted cooperation on equality and mutual respect basis with outside partners, through which they jointly raise their capacity of responding to new challenges, especially global issues," the Vietnamese prime minister said.

To promote ASEAN's role in linking economies in the whole region, the block should strengthen the economic link within it, and speed up the formation of the ASEAN Economic Community, he said, adding that the regional group is applying the broader economic link modes of ASEAN + 1, ASEAN + 3 and ASEAN + 6.

China, in 2002, was the first non-member partner to join hands with ASEAN in building a bilateral free trade area slated for completion in 2010, he said, noting that China is also a partner which has gained the most commitments about the block's trade liberalization.

China and ASEAN have been implementing an Early Harvest program on trade in goods since January 2004, and they are trying to sign an agreement on trade in services by late 2006. The two sides will facilitate negotiations on the China-ASEAN Investment Agreement in the coming time.

Besides China, ASEAN is negotiating on construction of free trade areas with South Korea, Japan, India, Australia and New Zealand, he said.

On Monday morning, Dung arrived in Nanning, capital of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, to attend a China-ASEAN summit which is to mark the 15th anniversary of the China-ASEAN dialogue relations. A joint statement is expected to be inked by leaders of the country and the block upon conclusions during the summit, charting the future China-ASEAN cooperation blueprint.

The Vietnamese prime minister will participate in the opening ceremony of the third China-ASEAN Expo to be opened in Nanning on Tuesday. He will also pay a visit to Guangxi's Fangchenggang city on China-Vietnam border after the Expo.

According to Chinese official statistics, China-ASEAN bilateral trade grew 20 percent annually over the past 15 years, reaching 130 billion U.S. dollars last year, 16 times of that in 1991.

The trade volume between China and Vietnam topped 8 billion dollars in 2005, making China the largest trading partner of Vietnam.

Source: Xinhua