ASEAN 16-preliminary meetings held in Hanoi

The 16th ASEAN Summit’s preliminary meetings were held in Hanoi on April 6, including the ASEAN Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM), the ASEAN Economics Senior Officials’ Meeting (SEOM) and the Meeting of the Senior Officials Committee for the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (SOCA).

These important meetings are to prepare for the ASEAN 16 plenary session scheduled for April 8-9.

In his speech at the opening of the SOM, the Head of Vietnamese diplomatic officials’ delegation, Pham Quang Vinh, said that the meeting is a major step towards putting all the documents from various meetings and the ASEAN Coordinating Council (ACC) meeting of ASEAN Foreign Ministers for submission to ASEAN 16.

The ASEAN community is based on three pillar communities: political-security, economic and socio-cultural.

The political security community aims to build a peaceful and secure environment for developing southeast Asia by raising cooperation within ASEAN on political security to a higher level with the involvement and contribution of outside partners.

ASEAN economic senior officials discussed ways of speeding up the establishment of the ASEAN Community and the implementation of the ASEAN Charter, boosting cooperation and intra bloc links while increasing regional capacity in order to cope with global challenges.

The assistant to the Trade Minister of the Philippines, Ramon Vicente said, “ We built the ASEAN economic community based on four major issues, including sharpening competitiveness, building a unique common market and a united production model with the free circulation of goods, services, capital and labour, bringing prosperity to the region as a whole and attracting outside investment,”

“Narrowing the development gap within ASEAN is also considered important for building an ASEAN economic community. Consequently, we are carrying out support programmes to help countries at a lower development level to keep pace with developed countries in the region,’ Ramon noted.

The socio-cultural community’s target is to serve and increase people’s living standards by dealing with issues related to social equality and justice, culture, the environment and the impact of globalisation and technological revolution.

SOCA officials discussed ways of accelerating the establishment of an ASEAN socio-cultural community later this year with a focus on evaluating an overall plan for building the community, and reviewing the results that have been recorded to fulfill the target of creating an ASEAN community by 2015.

To meet the 2015 target for an ASEAN socio-cultural community, 300 measures have been proposed. Therefore, the preliminary meeting put forward priority areas for this year with Vietnam as the ASEAN Chair.

The meeting focused on four major issues of global challenges, natural disasters, human resources development and economic recovery. In addition, improving social welfare for ASEAN women and children and building community-based cultural components were also touched upon.

The Head of the Gender Equality Department under the Cambodian Ministry of Women Affairs, Nheun Chosetra said, “We deem the target for an ASEAN socio-cultural community very important. As a member of the ASEAN community, we will make every effort to build a community with distinctive cultural identities. The building of the community will benefit ASEAN people culturally and in other areas. We expect that our target will be reached after these meetings.”

The Head of Thailand’s senior diplomatic delegation, Chitriya Pinthong praised Vietnam’s through preparations and expressed hopes that ASEAN 16 will be a great success.

At the preliminary meetings, other major measures were also discussed to overcome the consequences of the global economic downturn, ensure sustainable development and cope with climate change.

ASEAN leaders also agreed that to complete the process of building the ASEAN community, it is essential to resolve major threats in the region to bring all nations closer together.

More meetings for ASEAN 16 will continue to take place on April 7, including a meeting of the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) Council, a meeting on the establishment of an ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children and a meeting of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Council.