Remarks at the opening of 7th ACMECS Summit and 8th CLMV Summit

• Your Excellencies, Leaders of ACMECS and CLMV Countries
• Excellency Secretary-General of ASEAN;
• Excellency Under-Secretary General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)
• Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I have great pleasure to participate in these 7^th ACMECS and 8^th CLMV Summits, which are being auspiciously convened at this moment in the very charming city of Hanoi. I wish to congratulate His Excellency Nguyen Xuan Phuc on his chairmanship of these two summits and for his leadership in successfully organizing the first World Economic Forum on Mekong yesterday. On behalf of the people and Royal Government of Cambodia, I would like to extend our sincere gratitude and appreciation to Vietnamese people and government for their excellent arrangement of the summits and for the warm hospitality extended to all our delegations.

The two summits, ACMECS and CLMV, give us an opportunity to reaffirm our unwavering commitments towards strengthening our traditionally good relations – as good neighbors who always share the benefits to each other – amongst their countries and people. Furthermore, not only does the expansion of our cooperation under these two frameworks clearly indicate the importance each country attaches to the strategy of economic cooperation in this sub-region, but it also plays an important role in fostering ASEAN connectivity and strengthening ASEAN Community, particularly in narrowing the development gaps and promoting the welfare and livelihoods of our people.

Indeed, under the two cooperation frameworks, we have made many achievements in building good neighborliness, strengthening traditional friendship and expanding comprehensive and sustainable cooperation, which are aimed to ensure a peaceful, stable and prosperous future for the region. Nevertheless, I firmly believe that steady efforts are needed to move our cooperation firmly closer towards a higher level on the future as inspired by all our people.

In this spirit, I am looking forward to sharing my views concerning the topics and agenda of the respective meetings, thus providing some thoughts related to the visions, future directions, strategy and planning for implementing our cooperation programs.

Finally, I wish the 7^th ACMECS and 8^th CLMV Summits a great success.