SHANGHAI, July 23 (Xinhua) -- The Lancang-Mekong Youth Exchange and Cooperation Center was inaugurated in Shanghai Monday, with eight universities from China, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam signing a memorandum.

The center aims to enhance youth exchanges, cooperation and development among the six countries and will focus on projects of cultural exchange, university cooperation, youth innovation and entrepreneurship, transnational social practice and university think-tank construction.

The establishment of the center opens a new chapter of youth exchanges among the six countries and will further enhance the friendship among the people in the Lancang-Mekong River Basin, said Nay Win Oo, the deputy director-general from the ministry of education of Myanmar.

The inauguration is one of the functional platforms of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) mechanism, under the five-year development plan of the LMC.

The LMC is a sub-regional cooperation mechanism serving the common needs of the six countries along the Mekong River (the Chinese stretch of which is called the Lancang River).

During the past three years since the launch of the LMC, a set of organizations have been set up, such as the Lancang-Mekong water resources cooperation center, the Lancang-Mekong environmental cooperation center and global center for Mekong River studies.