Cambodia Prepares for Senior Officials Meeting with Coordinating Countries for the upcoming 13th Asia-Europe Summit

Cambodia is preparing to hold a meeting of senior officials with more coordinated countries to be more active as the host of the 13th Asia-Europe Summit, especially focusing on the details of the meeting.

HE Luy David, Secretary of State of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and Chairman of the National Secretariat for the 13th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), said that so far Cambodia is almost 100 percent ready to welcome the 13th Asia-Europe Summit.He added that although the 13th Asia-Europe Summit has been postponed to mid-2021, Cambodia has held a series of high-level meetings with leaders of 53 Asia-Europe countries and partners to provide feedback and find ways to recover the economy after the COVID-19 crisis.

He said “As the host of the 13th Asia-Europe Summit, Cambodia has always been active, we have hosted two meetings of the Coordinating and Senior Officials of the host country. Then we have already held in April and May, and in July ,we will hold a meeting with all 53 ASEM Senior Officials at once.As I confirm, Germany will hold the second meeting with the Senior Officials.And Cambodia will hold  meeting with another senior officials to discuss in detail the documents to be issued at the summit”.“And maybe we need to hold more meetings of the ASEM-Cambodia Coordinating Countries. We are now preparing a document for the ASEM Foreign Minister's statement on the fight against with COVID-19 pandemic. We are negotiating about the content which has not been decided yet. But in some part of the terms we did not agree. Normally 53 countries, it is difficult to negotiate in one article and we probably need to organize a meeting to release the document,”he added.

It is worth noting that Cambodia became a member of the Asia-Europe Summit in 2004 and was entrusted to host the 13th Asia-Europe Summit under the theme: “Strengthening Multilateralism for Joint Growth”with the participation of the top leaders of Europe and Asia, the ASEAN Secretariat and the 53 EU member states and partners.(This news came from informative.gov.kh)