Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Hoang Tuan Anh chaired the firstCambodia - Laos -Myanmar- Vietnam (CLMV) Tourism Ministers’ Meeting,which took place in Ho Chi Minh City on September 14.

The meeting was attended by Cambodian Tourism Minister Thong Khon, LaoMinister of Information, Culture and Tourism Bosengkham Vongdara, andMyanmar Ambassador to Vietnam Thet Oo.

Theofficials noted the impressive rise in the number of internationaltourists to the four countries in the past years. In 2011, CLMV welcomedmore than 12.3 million visitors, an increase of 14.5 percent over theprevious year. Of the total, 17 percent were from the four countries.

They reviewed the implementation and of theministerial joint statement on CLMV tourism cooperation signed in 2010with a theme of “Four Countries – One Destination”, and examined themutual support in international tourism events and forums.

In terms of cooperation with partners, the ministers highly valued thesupport of the Centres of ASEAN-Japan and ASEAN - Republic of Koreain personnel training and promoting images of the four countries inthe Japanese and Korean markets. Besides, they spoke highly of the helpsof the Asian Development Bank in infrastructure development.

They also signed a plan of tourism cooperation among the fourcountries for the 2013-2015 period, which aims to bring into play theachievements and further promote effectiveness of the cooperation, aswell as raising the proactive capacity of the four countries inaccessing international organisations as a bloc, in order to make them asingle destination.-VNA