Foreign ministers, along with deputy and state ministers of foreignaffairs from 31 ADC member countries attending the meeting, adopted theColombo Declaration, which affirmed the determination to boost ACD’sactivities to become more practical and effective.
A Vietnamese delegation to the meeting themed "Spirit of Asia: GlobalEconomic Recovery and Development Prospects", was led by DeputyMinister of Foreign Affairs Doan Xuan Hung.
Addressing those assembled, Deputy Minister Hung said that Vietnam isan ACD founding member and always attaches great importance tocollaboration within the body.
He also proposed that ACD should draw up measures and concrete actionplans to diversify avenues of cooperation, especially in boostingregional and sub-regional economic cooperation, as well as other areaswithin the ACD’s purview, including trade, investment, tourism, energy,human resource development and environmental protection.
Meanwhile, participants at the meeting said that although Asia wasadversely impacted by the global financial crisis, the region hasrapidly rebounded, playing an important role in rebuilding the worldeconomy.
They said that more efforts are needed to take full advantage ofopportunities to step up regional economic integration in a bid toboost connectivity and sustainable development in Asia, contributing toimproving the global financial and economic structure and addressingcommon challenges in terms of energy and climate change.
They also called for efforts to build a united and prosperous Asiancommunity and agreed to convene the ADC coordination group every sixmonths to seek ways to deploy ADC projects, giving top priority tojoint-efforts in the fields of trade, tourism, transportation, energy,information technology, culture and education.
On the sidelines of the meeting, the Vietnamese delegation’s Head,Deputy Minister Hung, paid a courtesy call to Sri Lanka’s Minister ofForeign Affairs, met Indonesia’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs andworked with other delegation heads to talk about bilateral cooperation./.