The 8th ACMECS Summit has concluded with fruitful results
The 8th Ayeyawady – Chao Phraya – Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy or ACMECS Summit, held in Bangkok on June 16, concluded with fruitful results. The Summit adopted two outcome documents: ACMECS Master Plan and Bangkok Declaration.
It focuses on multidimensional connectivity and highlights a people-centered approach. The ACMECS Master Plan also aims to complement the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity 2025, narrow development gap, and contribute to the process of ASEAN community building and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, as well as the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
In the near future, ACMECS is expected to become a sub-region with freer flow of goods, services, and investment, and to act as "land bridge,” linking the economies and markets of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, as well as other parts of Asia and the world.
As for the Bangkok Declaration, it underlines the ACMECS member countries’ commitment to capitalizing on their strengths and diversity and their win-win partnership and cooperation. ACMECS leaders commended Thailand’s initiative in proposing the establishment of an ACMECS Fund as innovative financing mechanism to address the need for funding of projects under the ACMECS Master Plan. They agreed to task their senior financial officers to discuss the Terms of Reference and the detailed operation of the ACMECS Fund in Thailand in 2018.