At the heart of the regional integration course is the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), the most advanced of all the pillars of regional community.
Advertisement
The coming establishment of the ASEAN Community is a right track as it will open opportunities for cultural exploration, more travel freedom, and mutual development, Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia said at a summit in Kuala Lumpur last week.
The leaders of the ten member-countries are here attending the 27th Asean Summit which is to close later Sunday.
Both the declarations were endorsed by the ASEAN leaders in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, among others.
AEC will bolster income and employment, and provide the region with stronger economic muscle in facing the other giants, said Michael G. Plummer, a professor of global economics at the Europe Center of Johns Hopkins University, based in Bologna, Italy.
After the signing, the leaders marked the occasion with a single simultaneous strike of 10 drums, symbolising Asean’s march towards a common destiny.
Potentially the world’s largest free trade agreement, the combined economies of the RCEP, would account for nearly 30 per cent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP).
“The perpetrators of these cowardly and barbaric acts do not represent any race, religion or creed, nor should we allow them to claim to do so”, Najib said in his speech at the ASEAN summit.
Malaysia, which had chosen the theme “Our People, Our Community, Our Vision”, for its chairmanship yesterday handed over the Asean Chairmanship to Laos which takes over as the 2016 chair with the theme “Turning Vision into Reality for a Dynamic Asean Community”.
At the ASEAN-South Korea Summit, leaders affirmed their positions to encourage more commercial activities between ASEAN countries and Korea, the bloc’s fifth largest trade partner, to bring trade to the $200 billion mark by 2020.
“India hopes that all parties to the disputes in the South China Sea will abide by the Declaration on the Conduct on South China Sea and the guidelines on the implementation”. The U.S. presidential election is scheduled for Nov 8 next year.
Basu Das added that ASEAN members who are not yet ready for integration may become more nationalistic. Its members are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
We will remain active participants in the ASEAN-led security dialogue and cooperation forums.
The community, known by its acronym AEC, is already a reality and many of its fundamentals have been applied in the region, including the removal of tariff barriers and visa restrictions. China and India reviewed the preparations for the CoP-21 conference in Paris with Prime Minister Modi briefing Li on the solar alliance initiative and inviting China to join it, an official statement said.
Advertisement
“Asean also needs a better and fast decision making process to cope with challenges facing the community”, he opined.
