In his speech at a press briefing on August 10, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Cam Tu said AEM-42 is the most important annual event of the ASEAN Economic Pillar in 2010.

The meetings will draw the participation of 18 economic ministers from 10 ASEAN countries and 8 dialogue partners (China, the Republic of Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, India, the EU and Russia) and a large number of representatives from businesses, research and media agencies.

Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang will chair these meetings.

 Under the theme “AEC: A Community for Dynamic and Sustainable Growth”, the AEM-42 affirms ASEAN’s commitments towards both economic growth and a balanced, stable and sustainable development. The theme also matches with ASEAN 2010 theme of ”Towards the ASEAN Community: From Vision to Action” and ASEAN leaders’ Statement on Sustained Recovery and Development proposed by Vietnam at the 16^th ASEAN Summit in April this year in Hanoi.

The AEM-42 and its related meetings will provide a good opportunity for ASEAN economic leaders to discuss specific measures to promote ASEAN economic cooperation towards the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015. The outcomes of the AEM-42 will be reported to the AEC-4 and from which they will then be submitted to the 17^th ASEAN Summit scheduled for Hanoi in October.

On this occasion, ASEAN and dialogue partners’ economic ministers will assess the implementation of free trade agreements, discuss measures to speed up negotiations of new trade agreements and define future cooperation between ASEAN and its dialogue partners in the following years.

Mr Tu said that as the host country, Vietnam has proposed some initiatives for cooperation such as expanding dialogues with businesses in regional policy making process, conducting the first consultation with economic ministers of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam (CLMV) with the aim of narrowing the development gap between CLMV and other faster developed ASEAN nations.