Minister Chin Young discussed ways to foster cooperation with Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia

Minister Chin Young of the Interior and Safety had bilateral meetings in a row with the heads of delegations from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia on November 25 and discussed ways to strengthen cooperation in many areas including capacity-building of local government officials and e-government system.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety (MOIS) hosted the ASEAN-ROK Exhibition and Ministerial Roundtable on Public Service Innovation on November 25-27 at BEXCO Exhibition Center 2, Busan, as the side events to the 2019 ASEAN-ROK Commemorative Summit which took place on November 25-26 in Busan.

The bilateral meetings were held upon the requests from three countries among the 10 ASEAN countries during the ASEAN-ROK Ministerial Roundtable slated for November 26.

Starting with the bilateral meeting with Nguyen Trong Thua, Vice Minister of Home Affairs of Vietnam, Minister Chin Young had bilateral meetings with Khammanh Sounvileuth, Minister of Home Affairs of Laos, and Sak Setha, Permanent Secretary of State of the Ministry of Interior of Cambodia and discussed ways to foster bilateral cooperation.

During the meeting with Vice Minister Nguyen Trong Thua of Vietnam, Minister Chin Young expressed his condolences on the missing of six Vietnamese fishermen after a boat caught fire in waters off Jeju Island and said that “We will exert our all-out efforts to search for the missing.”

After introducing the case of establishing the flood forecast and warning system by MOIS in Vietnam in 2016, Minister Chin said that “I hope our two ministries can expand the scope of cooperation to other areas including government innovation and local administration.” “Korea’s MOIS and Vietnam’s Ministry of Home Affairs share a lot in common in terms of public official organizational management and administrative reform. If we explore and promote cooperation projects in these fields, I believe it would be great help to both of our organizations,” he added.

The Ministry of Home Affairs of Laos suggested cooperation in government service innovation and local government development to MOIS before the bilateral meeting.
During the meeting with Minister Khammanh Sounvileuth of Laos, Minister Chin Young said that “I appreciate your suggestion to foster cooperation with MOIS.” “I believe closer collaboration between MOIS and the Ministry of Home Affairs of Laos will help promote local administration development and government reform more effectively,” he added.

At the meeting with Permanent Secretary of State Sak Setha of Cambodia, Minister Chin Young exchanged thoughts on key four areas including inter-ministerial cooperation, decentralization, capacity-building of local government officials and digital government.

Minister Chin mentioned that “As MOIS and the Ministry of Interior of Cambodia signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in public administration in 2017, I hope today’s meeting would serve as an opportunity to effectively promote follow-ups to the MOU.” “Korea’s resident registration system has been widely recognized as a benchmarking model by many countries around the world. If Cambodia would like to cooperate in this field, we will provide full support,” Minister Chin added.

MOIS held the ASEAN-ROK Ministerial Roundtable on Public Service Innovation from 9:40 a.m. to 5:20 p.m. on November 26 in BEXCO, Busan. About 150 participants including public administration ministers from Korea and ASEAN, including Minister Tjahjo Kumolo of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform of Indonesia, the delegations of ASEAN countries and ASEAN public officials under training in Korea gathered together at the roundtable under the theme of “Building better governance: bringing better future for all.”