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Published on January 19, 2008

The agreement was signed in March last year in China's Kunming City and contains 16 annexes and three protocols that would facilitate the movement of goods across the border.  The main components of the pact are the exchange of traffic rights such as the maximum quota of vehicles allowed in each country, driving licences and single-stop inspections such as common custom clearances.

Thailand, Laos and Vietnam have already signed a memorandum of understanding on the initial implementation of the CBTA, facilitating transportation through the East-West Corridor, which connects Thailand's Mukdahan to Laos's Savannakhet and Vietnam's Danang.

China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam are the six countries in the Mekong river basin, which constitute the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS). The 15-year-old GMS development scheme sponsored by Asian Development Bank (ADB) is aimed at building infrastructure to support sustainable economic growth.

After hardware elements of the scheme such as roads, bridges and tunnels were completed and with many more in the pipeline, the countries realised a need for software to harmonise and standardise regulations and to enhance the free flow of transportation, Nitya said. "The challenge ahead for the Vientiane GMS summit is how to create synergy and development cooperation across the regional agencies and frameworks," he said.

Besides the GMS, other cooperation frameworks exist in the region such as the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy of Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, and the Development Triangle of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

Nitya also suggested "demand-driven" development cooperation, a way of involving host countries in every aspect of their own developments and in all of the decision-making stages. Development of the Mekong countries was discussed in Tokyo as Japan's Foreign Minister Masahiko Koumura invited his counterparts from Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam to join the first Mekong-Japan Foreign Ministers' Meeting.

Supalak G Khundee

The Nation

Tokyo