sixth China-ASEAN conference for Prosecutors

Hanoi (VNA) - The sixth China-ASEAN conference for Prosecutors General opened in
Hanoi on November 24 to discuss cooperative mechanisms and action plans to increase
the effectiveness of the fight against transnational organised crime between ASEAN
countries and China.

The conference has brought together 200 prosecutors from the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China, plus representatives from the embassies
of several ASEAN member countries and officials from a number of Vietnamese State
agencies.

In his opening speech, the Procurator General of Vietnam’s Supreme People’s
Procuracy Tran Quoc Vuong stated that Vietnam places a lot of importance on
providing judicial support to other countries, regarding this as an effective way of
combating transnational organised crime.

He pledged that Vietnam’s Supreme People’s Procuracy will answer requests for
judicial support and cooperation from other partners in a quick, effective and
timely manner and hope to receive a similar response in return.

When speaking at the beginning of the opening debate, State President Nguyen Minh
Triet pointed out that the challenges and difficulties posed by the globalisation
process and the consequences of the recent global economic crisis have triggered a
series of alarming threats, including more sophisticated transnational organised
crime syndicates.

He argued that all the regional countries need to work closer together and pay more
attention to improving the capacity of justice agencies, underlining that the
growing ties between ASEAN and China have created a better platform for them to
increase cooperation in this area.

President Triet called on ASEAN and Chinese prosecution agencies to establish a
reliable mechanism to channel information on transnational organised crime between
the region’s countries. He also suggested forming a long-term vision on how to
deal with the operations of transnational organised crime syndicates, by drawing up
joint initiatives, to be taken within the framework of international law and
bilateral and multilateral agreements.

The fight against transnational organised crime is an important part of Vietnam’s
National Programme on Crime Prevention and Control.

Vietnam became a member of the UN convention on drugs control in 1997 and joined the
UN convention on crime prevention and the fight against transnational organised
crime in 2000. The country’s police forces are already an integral part of
INTERPOL and ASEANPOL.

In June 2009, the country ratified the UN convention on corruption so it could
officially participate in the global legal framework to prevent and combat
corruption, along with 140 other countries from around the world.

The Vietnamese National Assembly has recently introduced a law on judicial support
and other important legislation relating to judicial activities to lay a solid
foundation for the nation to fight crime and also so that judicial agencies can
strengthen links with their partners in the fight against transnational organised
crime.-Enditem