SIHANOUKVILLE: While speaking at the opening ceremony of the ASEAN Tourism Forum 2022 (ATF 2022) in Sihanoukville on Tuesday night, Prime Minister Hun Sen said that at present, vaccination is essential to prevent the spread of Covid-19, which many countries mutually recognize as necessary for the re-establishment of socio-economic relations, and are moving towards achieving on a wide scale.

He further spoke about the importance of reconnecting ASEAN countries to promote people-to-people contact and economic and tourism ties, by continuing to promote the fight against Covid-19 while opening tourism corridors.

He stated, “I want the priority of ASEAN’s work in 2022 to be to continue fighting against Covid-19, with the reopening of socio-economic activities, and the travel corridor within the framework of ASEAN. This problem was raised as an initiative by Indonesia. And I hope that our ASEAN Tourism Ministers will contribute to the preparation of travel corridors for tourism within our ASEAN framework and within the framework of ASEAN partners."

Prime Minister Hun Sen further added that there is a lot of work to be achieved by ASEAN in 2022, not just the ongoing crisis in Myanmar, nor should Myanmar take hostage of ASEAN.