Vietnam is actively integrating into the global economy and is decisive to build a dynamic and competitive market economy, said Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. The PM made the statement while speaking at the 2013 World Economic Forum on East Asia, themed “Courageous Transformation for Inclusion and Integration”, in Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar’s capital city, on Thursday. Over the past two decades, Vietnam has always actively integrated into the regional and global economy both in depth and on wide scale. During this period, Vietnam has shifted from a centralized economy to a market one and overcome all difficulties and challenges to record significant achievements, the PM said. Besides its own efforts, Vietnam, as well as other developing countries, needs the necessary and sufficient conditions of a peaceful, stable and cooperative international environment so that it can meet the goals in development, poverty reduction and industrialization, Dung said. Therefore, it is necessary to step up international integration process in East Asia in general and ASEAN in particular and strengthen economic links among ASEAN mainland countries or the Mekong region, including the setting up of trans-national economic corridors. Such corridors will serve as bridges linking South, Central and East Asia, as well as the Indian and Pacific Oceans, enabling businesses to expand their markets. In order to build these corridors successfully, besides the efforts of governments, the support of development partners and the engagement of the private sector are essential, Dung said.
He called on businesses to invest in socio-economic development projects in localities along the corridors for the benefit of themselves and of the entire region. All countries along the corridors and their partners should boost their cooperation to remove obstacles and step up the development of these corridors, Dung said. He also emphasized that the East Asian region is now home to world-leading economies as well as many emerging ones, which have the common trend of multifaceted cooperation for mutual benefits and development.