[PEOPLE'S DAILY ONLINE]
Cambodia hosted a two-day symposium on the
development of the Southern Economic Corridor ( SEC) here Wednesday to
attract investment and promote sustainable growth along the SEC of the
Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS).
The symposium was attended by
some 200 participants, who are provincial governors, private
stakeholders, experts, and development partners from 43 provinces along
the SEC in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, according to the media
release from Asian Development Bank on Wednesday.
The SEC is one
of the three priority economic corridors under the GMS Economic
Cooperation Program. The other two are the East- West Economic Corridor
(EWEC) and the North-South Economic Corridor (NSEC).
Thomas
Crouch, deputy director general of the ADB to Southeast Asian
Department, said during the opening ceremony that there are still many
gaps in transport links in the SEC compared to the EWEC and NSEC.
These
gaps involve not only road links that require substantial improvement,
but also transport interconnecting roads, ports, railways and airports,
he said.
Cham Prasidh, Cambodian minister of commerce, said the
SEC has the essential drivers of growth, including established markets,
agricultural and industrial base and world class tourism assets;
however, the development of the SEC will not happen overnight or
automatically.
"In this sense, it will be important to establish a
monitoring system -- a scorecard so to speak -- which can tell us to
what extent we are achieving our goals in developing the SEC," he said.
Arjun
Goswami, director of ADB Southeast Asia Department's Regional
Cooperation and Operations Coordination Division, said that the
development of SEC is very important to boost cross- border trades among
the SEC countries and GMS countries.
"In this regard, in the
framework of GMS, China can be a big market for the SEC's countries'
agro-based and agricultural products as well as other manufacturing
products," he said. " Moreover, the development of SEC will enable China
to access to the Southeast Asian nations easier."
GMS comprises
Cambodia, China, (specifically Yunnan Province and Guangxi Zhuang
Autonomous Region), Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam.
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