The 9th meeting on Mekong-Japan Industry and Government dialogue was held on 8th July 2016 in Bangkok. The meeting discussed the Mekong-Japan economic cooperation in the post 2015 and highlighted Japan’s contribution to ASEAN development in areas of industrial development, human resource development and infrastructure development, SME development and Business development. The Mekong Industrial Development Vision (MIDV) emphasize on advancing the industrial structure, and improving the regional value-chain network by reflecting unique advantages and competitiveness of each Mekong country and mutual complementarity with the spirit of “Specialization & Collaboration“. The expected outcome of the project is to increase GDP of USD 20 billion in Mekong (i.e. 2% of Mekong’s GDP) by 2020 by promoting Intra-regional trade of 10 billion US Dollars, Inter-regional trade of 8 billion USD and FDI of 2 billion USD until 2020.  

The meeting introduced the work programme of the “Mekong Industrial Development Vision,” including a list of hard & soft infrastructure projects for the realization of this vision, which is expected to be approved in the Japan-Mekong Economic Ministers’ Meeting to be held in July 2016. Mekong Institute has been identified as one of the implementing agencies for capacity building activities in the strategic goals on Improving Trade Structure, Enhancement of Business Collaboration, Competiveness of SMEs, Regional connectivity (soft infrastructure), Energy and Environment, Promotion of Human Resource Development to realize the Mekong Industrial Development Vision. 

The meeting was chaired by H.E Hirofumi Katase, Vice Minister for International Affairs and H.E Arkhom Termpittayapasisith, Minister of Transport, Thailand. The meeting was attended by 150 delegates representing government, private sector and international organizations. Mekong Institute was represented by Mr.Madhurjya Kumar Dutta, Director, Trade and Investment facilitation Department.