This year's ASEAN Chair Brunei Darussalam is convening a bi-annualgathering of ASEAN leaders to discuss the progress towards therealisation of the ASEAN Community by 2015, according to the ASEANSecretariat.
With two years before the deadline, theimplementation of the roadmap for an ASEAN community showedconsiderable gains across all the three pillars of the community,setting the stage for meeting the 2015 targets.
Withthe theme "Our People, Our Future Together", the 23rd ASEAN summit willdiscuss ways to consolidate these gains to meet the 2015 target ofhaving an economically integrated, politically cohesive and sociallyresponsible ASEAN community and to ensure ASEAN's position in the globalcommunity by 2015 and beyond.
The ASEAN leaderswill meet with their counterparts and leaders of ASEAN's dialoguepartners to discuss wide-ranging cooperation in the political-security,economic and socio-cultural spheres, which are undertaken throughASEAN-led mechanisms.
The 23rd ASEAN Summit willalso see the turn-over of ASEAN Chairmanship to Myanmar who will assumeleadership for the first time on January 1, 2014.
Secretary-General of ASEAN Le Luong Minh said: "The 23rd ASEAN summitmarks a very productive year of ASEAN Community building. In my annualreport to our ASEAN leaders, we are very pleased to note that we haveseen a more concerted effort to assess and prioritise our work acrossthe three pillars.
"For 2014, we will remainfocused on expediting the implementation of the remaining 2015 targetsand ensuring greater convergence of the three community pillars -- wherepeace, stability and development are, at the same time, each other’sconditions and driving force. By 2015 and beyond, it is our aim toensure not only the continuity and sustainability of the existingmomentum, but also to set the foundation for such concerted progress in amore challenging environment, with enhanced external interest andengagement in the region, and in much larger East Asian and Asia Pacificcontexts."
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations(ASEAN) was established in 1967. ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia,Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailandand Vietnam. The ASEAN Summit is the supreme policy-making body of thebloc.-VNA