The leaders of Japan and five Southeast Asian countries along the Mekong River plan to craft a new strategy in July for Tokyo to contribute to sustainable development of the Mekong region beyond 2015, a senior Japanese official said Thursday.
"The leaders of Japan and the Mekong states will assemble to draw up a new strategy that would succeed the 'Tokyo Strategy 2012 for Mekong-Japan Cooperation' for further development of Japan and the Mekong region as they are about to enter a new stage of cooperation," Minoru Kiuchi, senior vice foreign minister, told a forum in Tokyo.
Mr Kiuchi was referring to the strategy the leaders are expected to adopt during a Japan-Mekong summit slated for July 4 in Tokyo ahead of the planned launch of a more integrated Asean Economic Community at the end of the year.
Thursday's event, the fifth session of the Forum for the Promotion of Public-Private Cooperation in the Mekong Region, brought together government officials, businesspeople and experts from Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam and Japan.
A Thai delegate said the Association of Southeast Asian Nations hopes the strategy will include work plans for lower development gaps among Mekong states, a prerequisite for greater Asean integration, and for a more environment-friendly and higher quality of life.
Chutintorn Gongsakdi, director-general of the International Economic Affairs department at the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Bangkok, also voiced expectations of Japanese support in a joint Thai-Myanmar project to develop the Dawei Special Economic Zone in southern Myanmar on the Indian Ocean coast.