Governments of the Lower Mekong River - Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Vietnam - have given special welcome to the plan for the Mississippi River Commission to share experience to help their development efforts for the cross-border basin.

They welcomed the initiative for a 'sister river' partnership to be developed, which came as part of the talks between their Foreign Ministers and the US Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The partnership would see expertise and best practices shared in a range of areas, including climate change adaptation, flood and drought management, hydro power and impact assessment, water demand and food security, and water resource management.

The US and the Lower Mekong countries were holding their first senior government level meeting to discuss environment, health, education and infrastructure development, and other areas of common interest, they said in a joint statement.

The meeting was held yesterday in Phuket, Thailand.