Over 25 years since the founding of ASEM, Vietnam has always been an active, dynamic and responsible member, recording significant milestones in ASEM's development journey. The most outstanding contributions of Vietnam include the successful organization of the ASEM 5 Summit (2004); 5 Ministerial Conferences in the fields of economy (2001), technology - information (2006), diplomacy (2009), education (2009) and labour (2012), and the implementation of many initiatives in specialized areas of ASEM’s priority.
Vietnam successfully organized the ASEM high-level Policy Dialogue in June. (Photo: congthuong.vn)
Vietnam participated in the proposal and promotion of expanding ASEM membership twice (ASEM 5, 2004 and the 9th ASEM Foreign Ministers Meeting, 2009) and together with members, passed many important documents and decisions in the process of ASEM cooperation, such as "Hanoi Declaration on closer ASEM economic partnership", "ASEM Declaration on dialogue between cultures and civilizations" and "Recommendations on improving ASEM operation methods” (2004).
Up to now, Vietnam is considered one of the most active members of the Forum, proposing 29 initiatives and co-sponsoring 31 initiatives in practical fields with localities, businesses and people, including those in culture, health, transportation, energy security, food security, climate change, science - technology, tourism, economy, green growth, social security, inclusive development tycoon, digital economy and women empowerment.
Most recently, Vietnam successfully proposed and organized a high-level Policy Dialogue "Strengthening Asia-Europe Partnership in a Transforming World" on the occasion of the 25th founding anniversary of ASEM. The dialogue was Vietnam's initiative to celebrate the 25th anniversary of ASEM's establishment (1996 - 2021), contributing to promoting exchanges among members about the orientation and vision of Asia-Europe cooperation in the new period. It was also the largest-scale ASEM cooperation activity since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the participation and active contributions of high-ranking representatives from many countries and international organizations.
Vietnam is also one of the leading countries initiating and maintaining the first cooperation mechanism in ASEM on water resource management, the ASEM Dialogue on Sustainable Development, which focuses on sub-regional cooperation with Mekong – Danube riverside countries, contributing to raising Mekong sub-regional cooperation to the inter-regional level.
In addition, Vietnam holds many key positions in ASEM. Currently, Vietnam is actively promoting its role in 5 specialized cooperation groups of which Vietnam is a member in water management, disaster response and vocational training, education and human resource development, and technology connectivity./.