Deputy Minister Do Hung Viet received the Executive Director of the Mekong River Commission

Deputy Minister Do Hung Viet received Ms. Boutsadi Santipitaks, new Executive Director of the Mekong River Commission Secretariat.

At the meeting, the Deputy Minister congratulated Ms. Boutsadi on officially assuming the position of Executive Director of the Mekong River Commission, and affirmed the importance of the Mekong River to food security and sustainable development of the basin in general and the Mekong Delta in particular, especially in the context of negative impacts of climate change, rising sea levels and increasing water use activities in the basin.

The Deputy Minister emphasized that the implementation of water use projects must fully comply with the principles and regulations of the 1995 Mekong Agreement to avoid negative cross-border impacts.

Deputy Minister Do Hung Viet highly appreciated the role of the Mekong River Commission and the 1995 Mekong Agreement in creating a legal framework to promote cooperation among riparian countries to sustainably use and manage Mekong River water resources.

The Deputy Minister requested the Executive Director, during her term, to advise and encourage the member countries of the Commission in implementing the 1995 Mekong Agreement, and to proactively conduct independent studies and assessments on the transboundary impacts of major water resource projects in the basin.

The Deputy Minister also hoped that the Secretariat would soon promote the implementation of the decision of the 4th Summit on increasing the frequency of the Summit to every 2.5 years.

Deputy Minister Do Hung Viet asked Ms. Boutsadi Santipitaks, during her term, to advise and encourage member countries of the Commission in implementing the 1995 Mekong Agreement, and to proactively conduct independent studies and assessments on the transboundary impacts of large water resource projects in the basin.

Ms. Boutsadi thanked Vietnam for its active, responsible and effective support and contributions to the Commission's activities over the past time.

She highly appreciated the proposals on a number of priority orientations and affirmed that she would make efforts to implement these proposals in the coming time, contributing to improving the operational efficiency of the Commission and strengthening cooperation in the basin on water resources for sustainable development and livelihoods of people living in the basin.

On this occasion, Ms. Boutsadi also shared about some activities that the Commission has been implementing recently related to water use projects in the basin, including research, technical field visits... to support member countries in implementing procedures under the Mekong Agreement.

The two sides also discussed and exchanged some assessments of the difficulties and challenges facing the Commission and emphasized further promoting cooperation between the Commission and development partners and other Mekong mechanisms to attract financial and scientific and technological resources for the rapid and sustainable development of the basin.