AEC Feed

The visit to Cambodia of Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc this week comes as a key point in the Vietnam-Cambodia Friendship Year. 
The visit, today and tomorrow, visit by Nguyen’s will be his first to that country as the government leader of Vietnam.
Vietnam has 190 investment projects with total registered capital of US$2.89 billion in Cambodia, focusing on agriculture and forestry, while Cambodia’s investment in Vietnam is made up of 18 projects worth US$58.125 million. 
Bilateral trade exceeded US$2.9 billion last year and is estimated at US$936 million in the first quarter of 2017, a year-on-year increase of 11.6 per cent.
About 960,000 Vietnamese visited Cambodia and 212,000 Cambodians spent holidays in Vietnam last year. That made Vietnam the biggest source of foreign tourists to Cambodia, which ranks 13th in the number of arrivals to Vietnam. |– Viet Nam News

Regional governments look back on progress
The Lao Foreign Ministry Affairs has hosted a meeting that discussed the outcomes of the three latest summits held under the cooperation frameworks between Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
The summits included the eighth summit of Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam plus Myanmar or CLMV and the seventh summit of CLMV plus Thailand also known as the Ayeyawaddy-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy that were both held in Hanoi in October last year. As well the meeting discussed the ninth summit of leaders from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, or the “Triangle Development Area” , that was held in Siem Reap, Cambodia, last November.
At the summits, the leaders discussed the facilitation and implementation of as well as the obstacles and challenges to three cooperation frameworks held between the countries. – Vientiane Times

Philippines readies 40,000 troops for Asean summit
The Philippines will deploy 40,000 security and emergency personnel to thwart terror attacks against the Asean summit in Manila this week, according to government officials.
Marciano Paynor Jr., director general for operations of the Asean 2017 National Organising Council, said the government did not want a repeat of the terror attacks in Western capitals in recent years to happen in Manila during the regional summit.
“We can no longer consider only domestic security issues. As we all know, European capitals – London, Paris, Brussels – they all have had very serious terrorists attacks,” Paynor said.
“We have been lucky thus far. We would not want any of these things happening here, especially if we have guests and especially as we are hosting these Asean meetings throughout the year.”
Undersecretary Catalino Cuy, the officer in charge of the Department of Interior and Local Governments, said that government authorities have not monitored any specific threat so far against the summit. 
“There is no specific threat but |we are paid to be paranoid. In our preparations, we consider all possible threats to activities,” Cuy said. – Philippine Daily Inquirer