Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung highlighted Vietnam’s views on theimplementation of the roadmap to build ASEAN Community and Connectivityat the 18th ASEAN Summit’s plenary meeting in Jakarta on May 7.
Inimplementing the roadmap to build the ASEAN Community, he said, ASEANneeds to define priorities and specific goals for each year, appointagencies in charge of each area and increase coordination among agenciesin each pillar as well as all three pillars.
ASEAN also needs toexplore different ways of attracting funding because mobilisingresources bears key significance for the success of the implementationof master plans and working plans, he added.
Regarding the ASEANPolitical-Security Community, Dung stressed the need to promote ASEANexisting political-security mechanism, including the Treaty of Amity andCooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC), the Declaration on the Conducts ofParties in the East Sea (DOC), the Southeast Asian Nuclear-Weapon-FreeZone Treaty (SEANWFZ), the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), as well as tocontinue to build more norms of conducts to strengthen the environmentof peace, stability, cooperation in the region.
In the ASEANEconomic Community (AEC) pillar, the PM said the bloc should speed upthe progress for the establishment of the AEC by 2015 as scheduled.
Hesaid he agreed with the AEC Council’s proposal on priorities to 2015 aswell as priority on building a balanced economic region.
Alongwith implementing the AEC, ASEAN needs to chart following steps for theASEAN economic connectivity after 2015, which allows the bloc to bothintegrate in a dynamic and flexible manner and look towards a strongerconnectivity with measures at higher levels.
Regarding the ASEANSocio-Cultural Community (ASCC) pillar, PM Dung noted the need to defineprioritised areas and a roadmap, speed up the building of a mechanismon evaluation and supervision system for the ASCC blue print, which isexpected to be applied in early next year, and push up popularisation toraise the public’s awareness on ASEAN and the progress to build theASEAN Community.
The implementation of the master plan on ASEANConnectivity needs to be given top priority and will be an importantbasis for building an ASEAN Community by 2015, PM Dung affirmed.
Atthe plenary meeting, ASEAN leaders noted the significant progresstoward forming the ASEAN Community with its three pillars andacknowledged the challenges faced by ASEAN in its efforts to establishthe ASEAN Community.
They agreed to increase the efforts by eachindividual member state and collective efforts to achieve theestablishment of the ASEAN Community by 2015.
The leadersemphasised to promote the bloc’s existing mechanism and develop commonstandards of conducts for strengthening the peaceful environment,stability, cooperation in the region, solve disputes through peacefulsolutions in accordance with the ASEAN Charter and international laws.
Theyagreed to increase cooperation in response to non-traditional securitychallenges, such as food and energy security, nuclear safety, security,maritime safety and climate change.
Later the day, PM Dung attendthe meetings between ASEAN leaders and representatives of the ASEANInter-Parliamentary Association (AIPA), ASEAN Youth and civil societyorganisations.
Also the same day, the PM separately met with thePrime Ministers of Laos and Thailand to promote bilateral ties anddiscuss international and regional issues of common concern.
The 18th ASEAN Summit continues on May 8 with retreat meetings of leaders./.