Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Phạm Bình Minh. — VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — Deputy Prime Minister Phạm Bình Minh on Tuesday sent a video message to the 77th Session of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission of Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) at the invitation of Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, UN Under-Secretary General and UNESCAP Executive Secretary.

In his remarks, Minh said that for the past year, thanks to national efforts and the valuable cooperation and support of the international community, Việt Nam has fundamentally controlled the pandemic, ensuring social protection and security as well as economic growth recovery, attaining “dual goals” of pandemic prevention and social-economic growth and recovery.

“Việt Nam has also adjusted our short and long-term policies in transforming our growth model into one that is based on technologies, innovations, increasing the quality of economic growth to sustain production and rapid post-pandemic recovery towards sustainable development,” he said.

As Chair of ASEAN in 2020, Việt Nam pursued important initiatives within ASEAN to further efforts against the COVID-19 pandemic, towards the recovery of regional supply chains and ASEAN connectivity in coherence with sustainable development. It has also actively participated in strengthening the Mekong cooperation frameworks and the adoption of APEC Vision to 2040.

According to the Vietnamese official, the United Nations needs to continue to play a central role in policy cooperation and coordination to effectively implement a comprehensive strategy to tackle the pandemic, including having vaccines as the common good of the international community, ensuring fair, equitable and timely access to vaccination, and to diagnosis and treatment.

In addition, countries need to enhance international cooperation at all levels in practical experience and knowledge sharing in order to implement post-pandemic recovery strategies and policies, which are suitable for each country’s context, conditions and priorities, he noted.

He added: “It is imperative to enhance regional cooperation on trade and investment, tourism and innovative economy, energy, as well as on digital economy, including eradicating digital gap, repairing supply chains disruption, ensuring the continuous flows of goods and supply chains, enhancing regional economic integration and development of high-quality human resources so that the Asia-Pacific region continues to be the forefront of international economic recovery."

The 77th Session of the UNESCAP was attended by Presidents and Prime Ministers of 18 countries, including the Presidents of Indonesia and Afghanistan and the Prime Ministers of Cambodia and Pakistan. In their remarks, they shared experience in pandemic prevention and control, called for strengthening multilateral cooperation, and suggested UNESCAP continue its role of coordinating cooperation and information and experience sharing at the regional level.

The four-day session, themed “Building back better from crises through regional cooperation in Asia and the Pacific", will wrap up on April 29.

UNESCAP is one of the five regional socio-economic commissions of the United Nations. Its main function is to provide policy consultations and serve as a bridge for experience and knowledge sharing among member countries in economic, social and environmental fields. Currently, UNESCAP has 53 member countries which are located in the Asia-Pacific region. — VNS