On March 31, 2008, the Third Summit of the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) was held in Vientiane, Laos. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, Lao Prime Minister Bouasone Bouphavanh, Myanmar's Prime Minister Thein Sein, Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej and Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung attended the summit, which was chaired by Bouasone. They focused their discussion on ways of enhancing competitiveness, strengthening connectivity and promoting community awareness within the GMS in a friendly, pragmatic and constructive atmosphere.

Addressing the summit, Wen said the subregion is in its best period of development in history, marked by a great improvement in the member nations' self-development capability, closer and more harmonious relations between them and the growing popularity of the concept of building a harmonious community of countries in the subregion since the establishment of GMS as a cooperation mechanism16 years ago.

Wen pointed out that currently as the cooperation among GMS countries is still facing such outstanding problems as large poor population, weak infrastructure and shortage of funds, the subregion has a long way to go before achieving development and prosperity. In recent years, unstable factors in the international political and economic situations also pose new challenges to the subregional cooperation. Wen called for raised awareness of unexpected development, strengthened unity and closer cooperation and for efforts to improve ability of GMS countries to ward off risks, adding that member countries should adhere to the path of common development and prosperity.

Premier Wen said that to enhance competitiveness through greater connectivity should be the focus of the future cooperation among countries in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). To this end, Wen made four proposals, including treating each other with sincerity and enhancing consultation and mutual trust; stepping up development of transport, power and communications and making infrastructure in various countries connected; promoting both subregional cooperation and domestic development of individual countries; and striking a balance between economic development and environmental protection for sustainable development.

Wen also made a package of proposals for the next stage of cooperation among members of the GMS.

On infrastructure construction, Wen said the GMS should step up the building of transport corridors and promote the Pan-Asia Railway cooperation. He also called for building the Information Super Highway and forming a unified power market in the subregion.

On transport and trade facilitation, Wen called for the full implementation of the Agreement on Cross-border Transportation of People and Goods in the GMS to promote trade and investment development. The premier also proposed setting up the GMS Economic Corridors Forum.

On boosting rural development, the GMS should vigorously promote the development of methane and other bio-mass energy, said Wen, vowing to build methane-generating pits for 1,500 rural households in GMS countries. Wen also said the subregion should strengthen joint prevention against and control of cross-border animal epidemics.

On health cooperation, the GMS should focus on joint prevention and control of communicable diseases in border areas, he said, noting China, to this end, will hold the 2nd GMS Public Health Forum in 2009 and is ready to expand health cooperation projects with other countries in the subregion in addition to Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

On ecological and environmental protection, Wen said all countries should enhance their ability to adapt to climate change and carry out the "GMS Biodiversity Conservation Corridor Initiative". China will well protect the source of Mekong River and take care of the interests and concerns of the downstream countries.

On human resources development, Wen suggested all countries in the subregion will design more and better training programs. In the next three years, under the GMS economic cooperation framework, China will provide training to 1,000 person times from the subregion countries to double the previous number, said Wen. China will also increase government scholarships for countries in the subregion by 200 in 2008, he said.

On encouraging non-governmental participation in cooperation, Wen said governments should form close partnership with business communities. China will continue to sponsor the Lancangjiang-Mekong River Youth Friendship Program and include it in the framework of GMS economic cooperation.

On expanding financing channels, Wen hoped that the Asian Development Bank will further play its leading role in providing financing. He also said China encourages development partners to increase financial support and welcomes more countries and international organizations to become development partners.

Wen emphasized that China sticks to its foreign policy of "treating its neighbors well and as partners" and remains an active participator and promoter of subregional cooperation. China is ready to make unswerving efforts with other countries in the subregion to build a more harmonious and prosperous community.

Leaders from the GMS nations agreed that it is a common aspiration of all countries in the subregion to build an integrated, harmonious and prosperous community. To this end, all countries should strengthen infrastructure construction to achieve connectivity, promote transport and trade facilitation to transform transport corridors into economic ones and create favorable conditions to support private sectors in participating in subregional development. The leaders also agreed to enhance human resources development to improve competitiveness of the subregion, strike a balance between economic growth and environmental protection for sustainable development and expand financing cooperation with development partners to provide fund guarantee for the subregional development projects.

Leaders from the six GMS nations signed a summit declaration at the end of the meeting, and attended the inauguration of the Lao section of the Kunming-Bangkok Highway and the completion ceremony for the first phase of the GMS Information Highway. They also witnessed the signing of a couple of relevant cooperation documents.

President of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) Haruhiko Kuroda attended the meeting.