Vietnam chairs 63rd meeting of Initiative for ASEAN Integration Task Force

The Initiative for ASEAN Integration (IAI) Task Force convened the 63rd meeting virtually in Jakarta, Indonesia on March 25.

At the event

Ambassador Nguyen Hai Bang, Permanent Representative of Vietnam to ASEAN chaired the meeting in the capacity of chair of the Task Force in 2021.

This was a regular meeting of ASEAN permanent representatives to review the implementation of projects within the IAI and seek solutions to further improve the efficiency of IAI Work Plans, including the completion of the IAI Work Plan III (2016-2020) and the launch of IAI Work Plan IV (2021-2025) which was adopted in late 2020.

So far, 22 out of 26 action lines of the IAI Work Plan III, or 84.6 percent, have been implemented across five strategic areas of  “Food and Agriculture”, “Trade Facilitation”, “Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs)”, “Education”, and “Health and Well-being”.

Currently, 127 projects have been approved and implemented with total capital of 30.79 million USD. By the end of the work plan in July 2021, seven additional projects will be designed to complete the remaining four action lines.

At the meeting, the Task Force approved 17 new projects within the IAI Work Plan IV (2021-2025), 16 of which are funded by Singapore and one by Japan.

In the future, the Task Force will continue to speed up the second phase of the project supporting the implementation of the IAI Work Plan IV, including the organisation of national consultations in CLMV countries (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam) and a regional consultation forum, thus building detail implementation plan and propose model projects in CLMV countries.

The IAI was adopted by ASEAN member countries in 2000 with an aim to narrow down the development gap among ASEAN countries and support CLMV countries in full integration into the regional economy./.

VNA