The 6th Mekong-Ganga Cooperation, MGC Meet will begin in New Delhi today. This will be the first time that the MGC meeting is being hosted by India. While a meeting of senior Officials from Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand and India will take place today, Foreign Ministers of these countries will meet tomorrow. An official release said that External Affairs Minister SM Krishna and his counterparts from the MGC member countries will review cooperation among these countries and set out the future direction of this important mechanism for enhanced cooperation in the region. The MGC was launched in 2000 in Vientiane, the capital of Lao Peoples Democratic Republic setting out a vision for cooperation amongst India and the five Greater Mekong Subregions countries – Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand.

Ganga and Mekong, the two greatest rivers in Asia was the inspiration behind the Mekong Ganga cooperation. The motive was to render a new definition to the member countries in the new global economy without actually distorting their native identity. The priority areas identified were tourism, culture, education, human resources development and transportation and communication. These include East west corridor and trans asian highway, Joint research in the fields of dance music, development of Information Technology infrastructure and air services to boost tourism. If projects are successfully implemented to cooperate in these fields, it will certainly harvest favourable social and economic gains for these countries.