ASEAN role wins rich members’ applause

Vietnam has been at the forefront of taking ASEAN to a new level

ASEAN congratulated Vietnam in having coordinated ASEAN’S common position at the 43rd ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM-43) and related meetings, and active contributions at the recent G-20 Summit in Toronto, said an AMM-43 release.

Under Vietnam’s ASEAN chair, ministers have extensive and open discussions to advance ASEAN’s common efforts under the theme “Towards the ASEAN Community: from Vision to Action”, according to an AMM-43 joint communiqué.

Surin Pitsuwan, ASEAN secretary general, said he was upbeat about Vietnam’s role. “Once again ASEAN congratulates Vietnam on its ASEAN chair. We welcome and look for the leadership of Vietnam in combining ASEAN member countries into common goals and interests,” Pitsuwan told the press on the sidelines of the AMM-43.

He said Vietnam had performed well since the beginning of the year when ASEAN ministers came for a formal foreign ministers meeting in Danang in January and for a foreign ministers retreat in Hanoi in April.
“Everything has been perfect and I am sure, for the rest of the year, we will see Vietnam continuing to shine,” Pitsuwan said.

He said the eyes of the world were focused on Hanoi, “because ASEAN with its AMM-43 is here and because major countries with their representatives talking with ASEAN, with Vietnam being the chair.”

As the most important annual event of ASEAN foreign ministers, AMM-43 focused on concrete actions and practical measures to realise the decisions of ASEAN leaders at the 16th ASEAN summit, in April in Hanoi. It was held with a view to accelerating the implementation of the ASEAN community roadmap and effectively bringing the ASEAN charter into life.

“We [ASEAN ministers] have talked about how to cooperate more effectively in building our community in cooperation, integrating our economies, reduce barriers for our travel, trade and investment, which will be very important for building the ASEAN community.

“We [ASEAN] are not a small market. Our purchasing power is rising and our middle class is growing, while the opportunities for investment, trade and cooperation in science and technology and education and training are huge and very strong,” Pitsuwan said.

The ministers stressed that ASEAN would continue efforts to further broaden and deepen effective and substantive cooperation with external partners, especially in those priority areas such as trade, investment, energy, food security and climate change, disasters and pandemics.

The ministers said ASEAN would also work closely with its dialogue partners to prepare for a host of ASEAN Summits with external partners in 2010’s latter half, including annual summits with China, Japan, Korea and India, ASEAN+3 and East Asia Summit, as well as ASEAN’s special summits with Russia, the United States, the United Nations, Australia and New Zealand.

The ministers also approved the accreditation of 11 ambassadors to ASEAN from India, Japan, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Croatia, Sweden, Belgium, Turkey and Algeria. This has raised the total number of ambassadors from external partners to ASEAN to 41.

The ministers also reaffirmed ASEAN’s continued commitment and efforts to bring into full play ASEAN’s key role in promoting cooperation for regional peace, security and stability, intensifying dialogue for confidence-building and cooperation on political-security cooperation in the region.

In that connection, ASEAN shall work to further promote the effective implementation of ASEAN’s established mechanisms for regional peace and security namely the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, the Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone, the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea and the ASEAN Regional Forum.