GMS in the News

Foreign ministers of Mekong–Lancang Cooperation member countries vowed to strengthen their cooperation in economic integration, agriculture and food security, green development, innovation, public health and people-to-people exchanges, at the 7th Mekong - Lancang Cooperation meeting. 

The meeting adopted four joint statements on strengthening agricultural cooperation, disaster prevention, customs and trade facilitation, and exchanges between MLC civilizations. 

A green recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic in Southeast Asia has the potential to create $172 billion in investment opportunities annually and generate more than 30 million jobs by 2030, according to a new Asian Development Bank (ADB) report.

A new global pact for nature expected to be passed at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference in 2022 should balance the needs of developing and developed countries in helping avoid ecosystem collapse.

Demonstrations are one of the main activities of the CCESP in order to help enhance climate resilience, green growth, and environmental quality in the GMS. The program plans to have 27 demonstrations relating to the different themes (such as demonstrations on gender-responsive community resilience projects, and on the circular economy, pollution control, and waste management, etc.). Each demonstration project will have a budget of $40,000.

Cambodia and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic have reported a steady drop in average COVID-19 cases per day in April 2022, according to a report on “Vaccination Rates, Effectiveness, and Safety” by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). In Cambodia, the average COVID-19 cases per day dropped from 164 to 18.4, and deaths decreased from 1 to 0.06, marking a fall in case fatality rate from 0.43% to 0.35%. In Lao PDR, daily infection rates declined steadily, averaging at 986 for April 2022 from 1102 in March 2022, while average deaths per day plateaued between 1 to 3.