Vietnam’s ASEAN membership: Joining hands for prosperous community

Twenty-eight years since officially joining ASEAN on July 28, 1995, Vietnam's membership has left a profound mark with her positive contributions to the bloc’s common development, laying the foundation for the establishment of a community with political unity, economic integration, and social responsibility sharing.

Vietnam's role and contributions to ASEAN have been recognised in the process of shaping and forming the grouping's strategies, directions, and development plans, especially in promoting regional cooperation with major partners.

Vietnam has held the ASEAN rotating chair position three times in 1998, 2010, and 2020. Especially in 2020, the country effectively led the association's activities from in-person to virtual meetings, with its flexibility and proactiveness helping ASEAN stand firm and overcome the difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Vietnam has actively joined in the process of defining principles and "playing rules" for the region, thus together with ASEAN ensuring peace, security, stability, and promoting dialogue and cooperation.

With a population of nearly 100 million, Vietnam has been developing very dynamically and actively, showing that it is making progress in terms of economic growth, political position and social development.

Cooperation with ASEAN has always been an important pillar in Vietnam's foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, diversification and multilateralisation, and international and regional integration over the past 28 years./.

VNA