Asean ambassadors and other embassy officials celebrating 46th Asean Day yesterday at the Vietnamese embassy.
By Joey Aguilar/Staff Reporter
Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) have made significant progress in establishing the Asean Economic Community (AEC) by the end of 2015, Singaporean ambassador Wong Kwok Pun has said.
Pun, together with other diplomats and embassy officials, was speaking to reporters yesterday after a flag-raising ceremony at the Vietnamese embassy in Doha - an activity celebrating the 46th founding day of Asean.
He stressed that the organisation has focused and accomplished many things in resolving issues of member-countries through a “disputes settlement mechanism”. “We made a lot of headway in the implementation of the Asean charter”.
He described Asean leaders as visionaries especially in resolving various disagreements and bringing disputes in the international court of justice instead of resorting to other means.
“We continue to work on the key elements of the charter. The other area is we are working towards the implementation of the road map for an Asean community,” he said.
“On economic side, we have also taken big steps towards an integrated and sustained economic development in 2010 and with the entry into force of Asean trade and goods agreement and signing of eight framework
agreement on services,” Pun added.
The organisation has also initiated the “Asean integration” that will allow countries and dialogue partners (such as the US, China, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, EU, Russia) and other regional groups to work together to narrowing the development gap between new and old Asean member-countries.
Described as a flexible framework, Pun said the move was launched in 2000 in Singapore. Part of the plan is to give $33mn (coming from old members) technical assistance to the new members.
The ambassador said they are working at various levels, holding series of meetings to solve numerous problems which need collective actions.
“This helps to strengthen the regional unity that provides a stronger basis for foreign investors to come in to Asean,” he said.
Citing three target dates: January 1, August 8 and December 31, Philippine Ambassador Crescente Relacion has expressed confidence that the Asean Economic Community (AEC) will be established as planned.
Vietnamese Ambassador Le Hong Phan said that once established, Asean will become a free market zone benefiting all the member-countries. “With its great achievements, Asean is proudly moving forward in the establishment of an Asean Community by 2015.”
Indonesian Ambassador Deddy Saiful Hadi lauded the efforts of every member-country in pushing for progress and development. “The keywords are “connectivity” and “driving force” to promote the region.”
Brunei Ambassador Nordin Ahmad believes that more Asean socio-cultural and economic co-operation will take place in the future.
