DUSHANBE, October 15, 2012, Asia-Plus — Tajik Foreign Minister Hamrokhon Zarifi is currently attending the Asian Dialogue Cooperation (ACD) ministerial meeting that kicked off in Kuwait on Sunday, October 14, the Tajik MFA information department reports.
Tajikistan will formally takeover as the rotating chair of the Asian Cooperation Dialogue. Tajikistan will take over leadership of the ACD from Kuwait, the source aid.
Meanwhile, Kuwaiti media sources report that opening the ACD Ministerial Meeting at Sheraton Hotel in Kuwait, Kuwait Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Sabah said, “As Europe and the US bleed from the global financial crisis, it is time for Asia to consolidate itself and enhance concrete cooperation among Asian countries for the benefit of Asian people. An era of dialogue and mutual consultation is over and it is time for action.”
“A whole decade passed on our annual consultations and dialogues, during which, our genuine desire to cooperate and develop our joint action was embodied in order to promote our dialogue into a mechanism beneficiary for our people”s prosperity and welfare,” Al-Sabah said.
Kuwait is reportedly hosting the historic tenth Asian Cooperation Dialogue Summit from Tuesday to Wednesday.
The Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) is a body created in 2002 to promote Asian cooperation at a continental level and to help integrate separate regional cooperation organizations such as ASEAN, SAARC and the Gulf Cooperation Council. The ACD was founded by 18 members and currently comprises the 32 states (including all current members of ASEAN and the GCC).
The main objectives of the ACD are to: promote interdependence among Asian countries in all areas of cooperation by identifying Asia”s common strengths and opportunities which will help reduce poverty and improve the quality of life for Asian people whilst developing a knowledge-based society within Asia and enhancing community and people empowerment; expand the trade and financial market within Asia and increase the bargaining power of Asian countries in lieu of competition and, in turn, enhance Asia”s economic competitiveness in the global market; serve as the missing link in Asian cooperation by building upon Asia”s potentials and strengths through supplementing and complementing existing cooperative frameworks so as to become a viable partner for other regions; ultimately transform the Asian continent into an Asian Community, capable of interacting with the rest of the world on a more equal footing and contributing more positively towards mutual peace and prosperity
