ASEAN Culture and Art Ministers close sixth meeting

The 6^th Meeting of the ASEAN Ministers responsible for Culture and Arts (AMCA 6) wrapped up in the central city of Hue on April 20.

The meeting reviewed cultural cooperation within ASEAN and discussed the role of culture and arts as well as the common effort to build an ASEAN Community.

To date, the process of implementing the master plan for ASEAN socio- cultural community has achieved positive results. Nearly 90% of the total 339 goals related to the ASEAN socio-cultural community have been carried out through various activities-ASEAN cultural city, ASEAN Youth Camp, ASEAN ancient town network.

The ministers agreed to strengthen cultural and art cooperation for sustainable development of the ASEAN cultural community, towards building an ASEAN community by 2015.

They also reached high consensus on the role of culture as a pillar for sustainable development and agreed in principle with the Hue Declaration on the role of culture for the sustainable development of the ASEAN Community.

ASEAN Secretary General Le Luong Minh said: "Cultural cooperation in ASEAN is focusing on the preservation of cultural heritages. Twenty-one of the 33 UNESCO-recognized world heritages in ASEAN are cultural heritages. Economically, culture and traditions in ASEAN countries are important factors, contributing to promoting tourism and economic development."

Through this meeting, ASEAN is actively cooperating with the dialogue partners like the Republic of Korea (RoK), Japan and China.

Vietnamese Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Hoang Tuan Anh and Chairman of the sixth ASEAN meeting+3 (China, Japan and the RoK), said "ASEAN has always proactively defined approaches with dialogue partners especially China, Japan, the RoK. For Japan, we are proposing a new policy on Asian cultural exchanges and a project entitled "Towards Asia" which was started by the establishment of a center under the Japan Foundation for Cultural Exchange aiming to enhance people-to-people exchange and cooperation in ASEAN culture and art ".

The Minsters agreed to hold their next meeting in Brunei in 2016 under the theme "Culture for the future sustainable development of ASEAN" and exert combined efforts to realize the set targets, focusing on the Hue Declaration on the role of culture for the sustainable development of the ASEAN Community.

(Source: VOV News)