Mekong–Ganga Cooperation (MGC) was established on November 10, 2000 at Vientiane at the First MGC Ministerial Meeting. It comprises six member countries, namely India, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. They emphasised four areas of cooperation, which are tourism, culture, education, and transportation linkage in order to be solid foundation for future trade and investment cooperation in the region.
The organization takes its name from the Ganga and the Mekong, two large rivers in the region. The project was announced by the Foreign Ministers of the six MGC at the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Ministerial Meeting (AMM) in Bangkok in 2000. India has excellent relations with all the countries in the MGC; Thailand, with a pro-U.S. policy, is possibly the only odd one out. However, since the Vajpayee government enjoys good relations with the U.S., there should be little problem in India cooperating with Thailand.
