(VOVWORLD) - Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on Wednesday attended the first ASEAN-Australia Summit with leaders of ASEAN countries, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and ASEAN Secretary General Lim Jock Hoi.
 Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh speaks at the Summit. (Photo: Duong Giang/VNA)
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At the online summit, Prime Minister Morrison said Australia has so far provided 4 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to ASEAN countries and from now until mid-2022 will donate at least 10 million more doses of COVID-19 vaccine for ASEAN countries.
Australia is implementing a vaccine access program for ASEAN worth 523 million AUD and a package of 500 million AUD to support the region’s recovery and growth.
Morrison proposed the "Australia for ASEAN Future" initiative and announced an additional 124 million AUD for projects to respond to emerging challenges.
Prime Minister Chinh praised Australia's support for ASEAN countries in COVID-19 response and asked Australia to step up support to improve ASEAN capacity to respond to future medical emergencies and infectious disease outbreaks.
He called for both sides’ efforts to resume trade-investment flows affected by COVID-19, encourage and create favorable conditions for businesses to re-access each other's markets and participate more deeply into regional supply chains, promote cooperation in digital and high-quality infrastructure, training high-quality human resources for ASEAN countries, and people-to-people exchanges.
The Vietnamese Prime Minister said he hopes Australia will continue to support ASEAN's efforts to maintain peace, stability, security, safety, freedom of navigation and overflight in the East Sea, and uphold compliance with international law and UNCLOS 1982.
At the end of the meeting, the leaders of ASEAN and Australia agreed to upgrade their relations to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.