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Remarks by H.E. Mr. Abhisit Vejjajiva,
Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Thailand,
At the Opening Session of the First Mekong-Japan Summit,
6 November 2009,
Tokyo, Japan.
Excellencies,
At the outset, allow me to express my sincere appreciation for Japan’s excellent arrangements for the meeting and warm hospitality extended to me and my delegation.
I would like to thank Prime Minister Hatoyama for his active participation and important contribution to the 15th ASEAN Summit and Related Summit held in Thailand two weeks ago.
I would also like to congratulate Japan for hosting the first ever Mekong-Japan Summit.
Thailand has always attached importance to the development of the Mekong sub-region. For the past five years (2004-2008), Thailand’s funding for the sub-regional development is approximately 13 billion baht, two-thirds of which are loans for infrastructure development, while another one-third has been for technical assistance in capacity building and human resource development.
Despite recession and budget cuts, from 2008 to 2010 Thailand has provided and will provide approximately 20 billion baht worth of financial and technical assistance in 30 infrastructure development projects in neighbouring countries .
Thailand’s strong commitment towards the Mekong sub-region has been evident through various kinds of assistance offered to our neighbouring countries, ranging from enhancing regional transport linkages to empowering human resource capacity, from grants and soft loans to scholarships and training facilities.
Thailand would like to translate these commitments into concrete, long-lasting and sustainable results. This can only be achieved with good neighbourliness and strong people-to-people relationship which in turn must come from the sincerity and mutual respect that Leaders and governments must have with each other.
In this spirit, in 2010 Thailand, through TICA, is pleased to offer 120 training fellowships to the Mekong sub-region countries in the areas of our common concerns such as climate change, transport linkage, trade facilitation, poverty reduction and cross-border infectious disease control. We also intend to grant 10 post-graduate scholarships to the Mekong sub-region countries in the fields that would contribute to their economic development, such as agriculture, transportation, engineering, information technology and energy.
Thailand, therefore, welcomes Japan’s increasing participation in the development of this sub-region, particularly for its initiative -- the Mekong-Japan Cooperation. We believe that this forum can serve our region’s ultimate goals of narrowing development and economic gaps, bringing prosperity to this sub-region and increasing strength of ASEAN.
Thailand takes part in the Mekong-Japan Cooperation to reaffirm our commitment to the sub-region and our readiness to be a co-donor and co-sponsor with Japan.
As this is the first-ever Summit of the leaders of the Mekong countries and Japan to discuss development-related issues of the Mekong, the Summit will represent another milestone in our long established relationship.
Areas of cooperation between Thailand and Japan can be extended from cooperation on infrastructure development along transport corridors, both in hardware and software aspects, to cooperation on human resources development. Since Thailand is the venue of many reputable institutions, especially the Mekong Institute which was upgraded to an international organization, Thailand stands ready to co-sponsor with Japan for the training of the people in the region.
Today, I would like to propose an initiative on human resources development, where Japan and Thailand can collaborate in the field of our common interests, which I will elaborate further when we talk about the promotion of comprehensive development in the sub-region under Agenda 4.
I am also pleased to see the Summit will address, beyond economic aspect, issues concerning human dignity and security, such as the environment, disaster management and pandemic diseases. And I look forward to discussing these issues tomorrow.
I am confident that this will be a very productive summit and that it will provide us an important direction for the cooperation to ultimately reach our mutual goal of constructing a peaceful and prosperous sub-region, compatible with conservation of the environment and resilient to various threats and challenges.
Government Spokesman Bureau
Foreign Relations Division