Director General Hoa said that the 56th ASEAN-COCI Committee Meeting in 2021 was held virtually and chaired by Thailand as the Chairman and Vietnam as the Vice Chairman.

Ms. Nguyen Phuong Hoa (right) - Vietnam representative spoke at the 56th ASEAN-COCI Conference chaired by Thailand.

As Vice President, Vietnam has shared the view that, in difficulties, the identity of the ASEAN Community, the solidarity and mutual affection among the member states and the people of ASEAN has been further consolidated and fostered and become typical cultural value of the ASEAN Community.

At the same time, Vietnam affirmed, the exchange of culture and information helps ASEAN to unite under a common roof, towards a vision and an identity, turning ASEAN into a unified cultural community in diversity, serving for the region's sustainable development goals.

With respect to the 57th ASEAN-COCI Conference, Ms. Hoa said that with the theme "Digital Transformation: Accessible Opportunities for Everyone" chosen by Vietnam, the 57th ASEAN-COCI Conference will be held with the goal of building practical, effective and beneficial resolutions, ensuring interests of Vietnam as well as other parties, for the purpose of building a peaceful, stable and prosperous ASEAN Community.

Organizing the 57th ASEAN-COCI Conference is an important task in the implementation of the Action Plan for the 2021-2025 period for deploying the Project on formulating and implementing the Plan to realize the goals of the ASEAN Socio Cultural Community (ASCC) to 2025, as well as the Government's Action Plan on Propaganda and Promotion of ASEAN Vision 2030, she added.

Promoting the success of the 47th ASEAN-COCI Conference in Hanoi in 2012 hosted by Vietnam, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism continued to set goals, together with the Ministry of Information and Communications and other agencies made efforts to demonstrate Vietnam's ASEAN membership responsibilities by successfully organizing the 57th ASEAN-COCI Conference in Quang Nam province.

According to Ms. Hoa, the conference is expected to be held in the last week of November in Quang Nam province - the home of two world heritages, which is also the host of the Vietnam National Tourism Year 2022.

Culture and information help ASEAN to unite under a common roof. (Photo: Internet)

Up to now, the preparation work is being actively implemented by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in collaboration with the Ministry of Information and Communications.

“The conference will be an annual meeting to review and approve cooperation projects on culture and information to be implemented in the following years,” Hoa said.

Among those projects are the ones related to the organization of seminars, training, capacity promotion training, co-production and dissemination of publications in the field of culture - information, conservation and promotion of cultutral heritage, digitization, supporting businesses, promoting interaction among scholars, writers, artists, reporters, editors, media agencies, and ASEAN media workers.

At the 56th ASEAN-COCI Conference, Thailand selected the topic "Diversity and Innovation: Towards a Sustainable Future for ASEAN" as the discussion topic when ASEAN countries are making efforts to implement the Overall Plan to 2025 on pillars, including culture and information.

The participating countries highly appreciated and supported Thailand's theme, and made many recommendations to strengthen cultural and information cooperation through projects aimed for sustainable development of ASEAN, in which they emphasize the role of creative culture in the digital age.

Thailand promotes innovation, creativity and technology to develop green economy, renewable economy and technology. In the field of creative culture, Thailand plans to focus on developing cultural products, cultural capitals, community-based tourism and ASEAN creative cities network.

The representative of Vietnam - the country that holds the role of Vice President of the ASEAN-COCI 56 Conference - Ms. Nguyen Phuong Hoa affirmed that the field of culture and information help ASEAN to unite under a common roof, with the same direction of a vision, an identity, turning ASEAN into a unified cultural community in diversity, serving the region's sustainable development goals.

At this conference, ASEAN member countries exchanged and updated the implementation of cooperation projects of the past period and approved new projects in the next phase proposed by the countries.