Vietnam Customs will host the 13th ASEM Customs Directors-General and Commissioners Meeting

	ASEM Customs cooperation: Fighting against counterfeit goods for fast moving consumer goods
	3 priorities at the 13th ASEM Customs Directors-General Meeting
	Vietnam priotizes joint efforts to boost ASEM cooperation

Deputy Director General of Vietnam Customs Mai Xuan Thanh chaired the meeting. Photo: H.N

The Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) is an intergovernmental process which was established in 1996 to foster dialogue and cooperation between Asia and Europe.

As an informal process of dialogue and cooperation, based on equal partnership and enhancing mutual understanding, ASEM provides an open forum for policy makers and officials to discuss any political, economic and socio-cultural issues of common interest, complementing the work already being carried out in bilateral and other multilateral forums of United Nations and World Trade Organization (WTO).

ASEM works on three key pillars of politics, security-economy and social culture. The economic pillar of ASEM aims to promote multilateral economy, promote trade and investment, strengthen dialogue on financial issues, resolve crisis and enhance dialogue with the business community and pursue close and friendly economic partners.

Customs cooperation in the ASEM forum is also in the process of security and economic dialogue, with the main priority supplementing the implementation of the multilateral trading system in the WTO. The ASEM Customs Directors-General and Commissioners Meeting is held every two years.

The ASEM Customs Directors-General and Commissioners Meeting plays the role of the forum to guide and direct working groups to implement action plans approved by ASEM’s Directors General .

Deputy General Director of Vietnam Customs Mai Xuan Thanh said that ASEM customs cooperation has focused on fields including trade facilitation and supply chain security, fighting counterfeit goods, intellectual property rights enforcement, social and environmental protection, and business partnerships.

The priorities of ASEM cooperation in 2019 concentrate in several priority areas: policy connection, sustainable connectivity, trade and investment connectivity, digital connectivity, people-to-people connectivity to cope with security challenges.

The objective of this action programme is to promote ties between Europe and Asia on transport, energy, digital infrastructure and human resources, minimising barriers to goods circulation, services and human resources, promoting free trade and investment.

The organisation of the 13th ASEM Customs Directors-General and Commissioners Meeting plays an important role to show the position of Vietnam Customs inASEM cooperation. As the host country, Vietnam Customs will actively contribute and propose plansfor customs cooperation in ASEM in 2019-2020.

The unit will aim to take advantage of support from customs authorities of ASEM countries, especially promoting cooperation with European partners.

The ASEM Customs Directors-General and Commissioners Meeting is the large meeting with the participation of 53 delegations from the Customs offices of ASEM member countries, the ASEAN Secretariat and the European Union and about 180 delegates.

This meeting will take place on October 2019 in QuangNinh province.