May I first of all on behalf of the ASEAN colleagues extend our warm welcome to Your Excellency and your Delegation to this PMC 7+1 Dialogue Session between ASEAN and New Zealand. Exactly one year ago, Vietnam officially joined the ASEAN and subsequently at the ASEAN-New Zealand Dialogue Session in Brunei Darussalam where we first participated, Vietnam was honoured to be appointed the country coordinator for ASEAN dialogue relations with New Zealand. For us, this is quite a new job. However, during the last year we have always enjoyed the close cooperation and assistance from New Zealand as well as from other ASEAN colleagues, especially the Philippines in the discharge of our task. On behalf of the Vietnamese Delegation, I would like to express our task our deep appreciation to you all for that cooperation.

We are pleased to see the fine developments of the cooperative relations between ASEAN and New Zealand. It is true to what Your Excellency observed at the 1995 Dialogue Session that the relationship between New Zealand and ASEAN is in excellent shape.

This Dialogue Session offers a good opportunity for us to review the developments of the ASEAN-New Zealand relations and exchange of view on the issues of mutual concern.

Excellency,

The Fifth ASEAN Summit Meeting in Bangkok in December 1995 was a great success with the conclusion of documents which are of great importance for the social and economic life of the ASEAN countries. The signing of the Treaty on Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone (SEANWFZ) at the Meeting constitutes an important event and a major contribution it ensuring peace and stability in this region. This also meets the wish of New Zealand for an Asia-Pacific region of peace, stability, prosperity and free from nuclear weapons. We highly appreciate the support extended by New Zealand towards the Treaty. We also share the desire to ensure that the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapon Treaty (NWT) is respected for the sake of maintaining international peace and security, as well is the need to early conclude the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996.

New Zealand is one of the First two dialogue partners of ASEAN, this relationship was begun in 1975 and over the years has been increasingly and steadily developed.

We highly value New Zealand’s commitments to the region through the implementation of the "Asia 2000" Program with a view to enhancing New Zealanders’ greater awareness of Asia and their participation in trade and investment activities as well as cultural exchanges with Asia. That Program is being translated into reality. People-to-people contacts between New Zealand and ASEAN have been increasingly promoted, thus contributing to the deepening to mutual understanding.

The ASEAN countries also highly appreciate the re-orientation of New Zealand's priorities toward Asia, a region which accounts for 35% of New Zealand’s total trade value. In 1995, New Zealand's export to Southeast Asia made up about 7.72% of its total export; and its import from this region accounted for 6% of the total, an increase of 34.37% as compared to 1994. It is gratifying to note New Zealand’s continued commitments that the ASEAN concern over the access of its products to New Zealand’s market will be addressed. However, theme still exist opportunities to further increase the two-way trade and investment. Today, an increasingly expanded ASEAN wine over 400 million inhabitants becomes a huge and most dynamically growing market in the world. The realization of AFTA and economic cooperation in areas such as industry, services, investment, intellectual property and the ASEAN Mekong Basin Development Cooperation will help enhance the economic ties between ASEAN and New Zealand, thus providing new opportunities for New Zealand companies to trade with and invest in the ASEAN countries. ASEAN hopes that New Zealand will take advantage of these emerging opportunities.

We also note with satisfaction the outcome of the informal consultations in September 1995 between the ASEAN Economic Minsiters (AEM) and their counterparts of the, Closer Economic Relations Agreement (CER). The two sides have identified four- priority areas for cooperation with a view to deepening the linkage between AFTA and CER. At Present. both sides are trying to materialize the said priorities. ASEAN is also making preparations for the 2nd lnformal Consultations to be held in Jakarta this coming September and hopes that the Meeting will produce good results to strengthen the ASEAN-CER trade and investment linkage. Just on last 16 July in Christchurch and 18 July in Wellington, ASEAN-AFTA Business Briefings were conducted by ASEAN and New Zealand Business Council for New Zealand entreprencurs in order to keep them informed of the investment and trade opportunities offered by the realization of AFTA. We welcome shelf initiatives and hope that the outcome of these meetings will help accelerating the economic relations, trade and investment activities between ASEAN and New Zealand.

Your Excellency,
Distinguished Delegates,

Since our last meetings ASEAN and New Zealand have expanded the relations to new areas such as the promotion of trade, investment, science find technology, and tourism, The ASEAN-New Zealand Economic Cooperation Program (ANZECP) has seen many encouraging developments. With the completion of the Inter-Institutional Linkage Program (IILP) in December 1995, a new cooperative area, that is, science and technology, has been identified. In October 1995, the Third Meeting of the Join Management Committee (FMC) was held in Wellington. The Meeting reviewed various cooperation programs, especially agreed on the establishment of the Biotechnology Fund and worked out the orientations and priority areas for cooperation in biological technology and materials science. The ASEAN Technical Committees have been collaborating closely with the New Zealand counterparts on biotechnology for the mutual benefits it is hoped that in the time to come, the program will soon be put in operation to increase the capacity of the ASEAN Research lnstitutes for Biological T'echnology in cooperation with New Zealand. Other economic cooperation projects like Trade and Investment Promotion Program (TIIP), Natural Gas Utilization in Transportation (NGUT) are under way, bringing about concrete benefits for the ASEAN countries. I also wish to inform you that the 13th ASEAN - New Zealand Dialogue Meeting will be held in Hanoi from 24-25 October this year, and prior to this Meeting will be the Fourth JMC Meeting to review the progress of these cooperation programs. I hope that the results of the Dialogue Meeting will further reinforce the solid foundation of the ASEAN - New Zealand relationship.

As you may have known, in the light of the decision made at the ASEAN Summit Meeting in Bangkok, ASEAN is placing a great interest on the Mekong sub-regional development. We welcome New Zealand's participation in this program. We also highly appreciate New Zealand’s assistance to set up the Khon-khen retraining facility (Thailand) for the Mekong riparian countries. I Hope that New Zealand will take new steps in supporting the development projects for this large and growing sub-region.

In conclusion, I would like to take this opportunity to express our deep appreciation to New Zealand and other ASEAN countries for giving Vietnam the honour of being the country coordinator for the ASEAN-New Zealand Dialogue. We shall do our utmost to contribute to the enhancement of the good relations between ASEAN and New Zealand.

Thank you.