YANGON -- Commander-in-Chief of Myanmar's Defense Services Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing has stressed the need for cooperation of medical corps of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) during natural disaster, official media reported Thursday.

Meeting with representatives attending the 5th ASEAN Chiefs of Military Medicine Conference (ACMMC) hosted by Myanmar in Nay Pyi Taw Wednesday, Min Aung Hlaing urged the participants to strive toward building medical corps that can be relied upon not only by the defense services but also by the people.

Noting that ASEAN is an economically strong regional organization of 600 million people, he called for the international community to respect its unity, emphasizing that medical science is always developing and beneficial for ASEAN countries to share medical knowledge and experience.

ACMMC has been held since 2011 and the next ACMMC, which is the 6th, is set to be hosted by the Philippines in 2016.