Development of GMS

China attaches great importance to and actively participates in the Great Mekong Subregion Economic Cooperation Program (GMS), and the Chinese premier has attended all three GMS summits.

GMS cooperation in the areas with Chinese participation, including trade and investment, transportation, energy, telecommunication, environment, agriculture, tourism and human resources development, has made continued progress.

The GMS Economic Corridor Forum proposed by China held its first meeting in Kunming in 2008 and played a positive role in facilitating the expansion of corridor cooperation from transportation to trade and investment and promoting the development of economic corridor. China has also hosted the GMS Economic Corridor Week, the GMS Project Fair and other GMS-related activities.

Major progress has been made in improving the connectivity of transportation infrastructures. The Chinese section of the middle route of GMS North-South Economic Corridor (Kunming-Hanoi-Haiphong), which is 407 km in length, has been upgraded into an expressway standards. The Chinese section of the 380-km-long east route of the corridor (Kuming-Nanning-Hanoi), which is 179 km in length, has been upgraded according to expressway standards. China has also signed the GMS Agreement on Facilitation of Cross-border Transport of Goods and People and its 17 attachments and 3 protocols on cross-border movement of people, transit arrangement, vehicle standard, highway signs and signals, etc.

China has been actively involved in power grid interconnectivity and power trade with other GMS countries, and pushed for the formulation of the GMS master plan for electric power development. The first phase of the GMS Information Superhighway, which was initiated and partly built by China, was completed in March 2008.

Starting from 2005, China has launched a series of cooperation programs on the prevention and control of communicable diseases in Yunnan Province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, as well as the border areas in Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam, which mainly include the following: the pilot program on joint prevention and control of malaria in China-Myanmar border areas; the pilot programs on AIDS prevention and control in China-Myanmar, China-Laos, and China-Vietnam border areas and the program on the prevention and control of tuberculosis in China-Vietnam border areas.

Since 2008, China has hosted three high-level seminars on human resources and social security to exchange opinions with GMS countries on ways to improve social safety net, promote human resources development and boost employment in the course of economic restructuring. China has also set up women training centers in Laos and Thailand to teach practical technologies to local women.

Environmental Protection of the Mekong River

In May 2010, the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection sponsored the workshop of GMS senior officials on environmental protection and ecological protection administration, which was participated by 21 senior environment officials from Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. By offering a package of lectures and field trips, the workshop provided an opportunity for the participants to not only learn about China's policies and experience in managing environmental protection, but also share their own experience in environmental protection and ecological management.

TV and Film about the Mekong River

Agreement Documents