Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung will meet Chinese senior officials to discuss Mekong River and water resources, the VietnamNet newspaper reported Mar. 28, citing the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Hanoi and Beijing officials will meet on the sideline of the April 3-5 summit of the four Southeast Asian countries of the Mekong River Commission (MRC), the ministry said. During the summit, ministers of the four countries engaging in water managements will discuss measures to overcome challenges of climate change and boost cooperation with China and Myanmar. Every corners in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam are being hurt by the Mekong's biggest drops in water levels over the 50 years now. In Vietnam, 620,000 hectares of winter-spring rice in the Mekong Delta region are under threat. Experts said that the situation is caused by the prolonged droughts and eleven hydropower plants’ dams already completed or partly built by China in upstream of the Mekong Delta. In northern Vietnam, the water levels of the Red River are also at lowest levels since 1903.
