Sixth Mekong-Ganga Cooperation group meet begins today

In a bid to review the cooperation among Mekong-Ganga Cooperation (MGC) group and setting out the future direction of this group, India is hosting today its sixth meeting in the capital.

MGC was established on November 10, 2000 at Vientiane in the First MGC Ministerial Meeting. It comprises six Member countries - namely, India, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. They emphasised four areas of cooperation, which are tourism, culture, education, and transportation linkage in order to be solid foundation for future trade and investment cooperation in the region.

Senior Officials from group members will meet today while Foreign Ministers of these countries will meet on Tuesday.

External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna and his counterparts from the MGC member countries will review cooperation among these countries and set out the future direction of this important mechanism for enhanced cooperation in the region.

Five MGC ministerial meetings have been held so far, in Vientiane, Lao PDR on November 10, 2000; in Hanoi, Vietnam on July 28, 2001; Phnom Penh, Cambodia June 20, 2003; in Cebu, Philippines on January 12, 2007 and in Manila, Philippines on August 1, 2007.

The four priority areas identified for cooperation so far have included tourism, culture, education/human resource development and transportation and communication.

This would be the first time that the MGC meeting would be hosted by India in New Delhi. Earlier, India had chaired the fifth MGC Ministerial Meeting on the sidelines of the ASEAN-India Meetings.

Sourced: newstrackindia