On March 23, 2016, the leaders of the Mekong countries (Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Viet Nam) and the People's Republic of China jointly announced the establishment of the Mekong-Lancang Cooperation (MLC) Framework at the First Mekong-Lancang Cooperation Leaders' Meeting in Sanya, China. The MLC member countries have jointly set the goal of comprehensive socio-economic development on the basis of equality, mutual benefit and narrowing the development gap by focusing on three pillars: Political and Security, Economic and Sustainable Development, Social Cultural and People-to-People Exchange, with concentration on 5 priority areas: Connectivity, Production Capacity, Cross-Border Economic Cooperation, Water Resource Management, Agriculture and Poverty Reduction. Since then, the cooperation among MLC countries has further enhanced and expanded into other potential areas of cooperation such as education, public health, trade and investment facilitation, financial and technical support to strengthen capacity building in order to contribute to the economic growth and the well-being of the people in the Mekong-Lancang sub-region.

Excellencies, Leaders of the Party and the State,

-       Dear Fellow Compatriots, Soldiers, Police and all Lao People,

            Today, 8 August 2021, we jointly commemorate and celebrate the 54^th anniversary of the founding of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN (8 August 1967 - 8 August 2021) while the world is facing the COVID-19 pandemic as well as natural disasters. Since its inception in 1967, ASEAN has grown into a resilient inter-governmental regional organisation with the aim of maintaining and promoting peace, stability and cooperation for the prosperity of the ASEAN Member States based on the aspiration of the ASEAN Charter that aims to build an ASEAN Community under the ASEAN Motto: “One Vision, One Identity, One Community”.

Special ASEAN-China Ministers’ Meetingin Celebration of the 30^th Anniversary of the Dialogue Relations, Chongqing, China