6th Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Senior Officials' Meeting paves way for Summit

PHNOM PENH - The 6th Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) Senior Officials' Meeting was held on Tuesday, with high-level officials from the six Lancang-Mekong countries finalizing the Five-year Action Plan and the Phnom Penh Declaration for Wednesday's 2nd LMC Leaders' Meeting.

Co-chair of the meeting Huang Xilian, deputy director-general of the Asian Affairs Department of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, told Xinhua that the Senior Officials' Meeting discussed the significant progress the LMC mechanism has been made since its establishment only less than two years ago.

"The Lancang-Mekong Cooperation has shown a characteristic of pragmatism, high efficiency, project-based, and people's livelihood-prioritized," said Huang.

According to him, the meeting has reviewed several important documents for Wednesday's summit, including the Phnom Penh Declaration and the Five-Year Plan of Action on LMC (2018-2022).

"We have reached a consensus on the Five-Year Action Plan proposed by China, which covers more than 20 cooperative areas and will set as a guideline document for the development of Lancang-Mekong Cooperation in the next five years," Huang said.

The Phnom Penh Declaration will express the strong political will of all six Lancang-Mekong countries, namely China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, to promote the LMC for greater achievements, the Chinese official said.

The meeting also reviewed the list of the second batch of tentative LMC projects, which have attracted more than 200 project applications, and reports of the six working groups of priority areas, Huang added.

All sides are expecting Wednesday's summit will reach new consensus on the future development of LMC and point a new direction for the mechanism, he told Xinhua.

Co-chair Sok Siphana, an advisor to the Cambodian government, hailed the dynamic Lancang-Mekong Cooperation mechanism.

"This initiative has been very dynamic, the spirit of cooperation is very strong, that's why we have been moving very fast in less than three years to reach the summit level," he said.

As there is no division of the mechanism, Siphana didn't see any political challenge, but more of a operational level of challenge.

"Because it's so broad in scope, ranging from connectivity, cross-border issue to agriculture, poverty, and water management, to us, as a Mekong-Lancang secretariat, the big challenge is to coordinate with many ministries in the country."

"To me, it's more about sweat than political headaches," he said.

The Second Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Leaders' Meeting, themed "Our River of Peace and Sustainable Development", will be held in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh on Wednesday.