The 18th ASEAN Plus Three (China, Japan and Relublic of Korea) Environment Ministers Meeting held on August 24, in Vientiane with the aim to enhance and promote the relationship and collaboration on environment.
Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Bounkham Vorachit spoke at the opening ceremony that we are aware, environmental issues are cross-sectoral in nature and have significant impacts on socio-economic development and human wellbeing both at the 2 regional and global levels. Thus, concerted efforts are essential to tackle such problems.
She called on all Asean member countries an Asean partner countries have full responsibility to put on the ground the outcomes of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, which contains many issues related to the activities under the framework of ASEAN Plus Three, such as environmental protection, sustainable cities, environmental disaster and climate change, biodiversity so on and so forth.
Cooperation is crucial to address the problem. Therefore, deepening our relationship and cooperation with people beyond the region such as the People’s Republic of China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea hand in hand in all these fields will bring significant outcome for not only to our people, but the entire world population in the field of stability, security, prosperity and sustainability, Bounkham went on. Thus, an innovative partnership with our 3 valuable partners needs to be enhanced and this will be a significant approach to enable us to overcome these global challenges. The continued collaboration with the People’s Republic of China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea is the key to achieve sustainable development for all ASEAN Member States. today’s meeting has two main objectives for our future mutual benefit.
The meetin will discuss the progress of cooperative environmental activities, and second is to discuss on plan for our continued cooperation in 2024. They will have a fruitful deliberation which will certainly lead to the betterment of our environment and the standard of living of our people. Lao PDR together with the ASEAN Member States would like to take this opportunity to 3 express our sincere appreciation to the People’s Republic of China, Japan and the Republic of Korea for their continuing support and active cooperation to ASEAN , she said.
Source: Lao News Agency
