The challenge of this association of nations, marked by diversity, can be seen in the words of Najib while inaugurating the summit the day before, when he asked: How do we make the ASEAN something that touches the daily lives of our people, how do we make our citizens feel, directly, that the chances of the Community we will establish are their own? “In practise, we have virtually eliminated tariff barriers between us”, said Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, the summit host.
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The Asean Strategic Action Plan for SME Development (2016-2025), which was launched at the Asean Business and Investment Summit on Saturday, is an extension of the achievements of the 2010-2015 Action Plan which charted six key policy dimensions. “They will continue to live in a more united, secure, peaceful and cohesive region”, the ASEAN stated.
Asked about how Asean should deal with the emerging extremist ideologies within the region, Kavi said that there was a need to generate community-based support to combat extremism from spreading.
“We are promoting peace, stability and security in the region by redoubling our cooperative efforts”, the EAS leaders said in a statement. Terrorism and territorial tensions are expected to dominate discussions during the 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’.
Statistics show that China remains ASEAN’s biggest trading partner while ASEAN is China’s third largest trading partner.
The ten-member ASEAN includes Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines and Vietnam.
Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung was among the ASEAN leaders at the gathering, which also included the representatives of the group’s dialogue partners, including China, South Korea, Japan, India, New Zealand, Australia, the US and Russian Federation.
China enjoys abundant capital and strong technological strength, while ASEAN aspires for accelerated regional integration and has great needs for industrial development and infrastructure, Gao said.
The EU-style grouping has completed 100 percent of the measures for the pillar of politics-security, 100 percent of those for the pillar of culture-society, and 93 percent for those for the pillar of economic matters, Secretary General Minh said.
He drew attention to the country’s succesful year-long hosting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum that ended last week, with the Leaders of Economies issuing the Manikla Declaration.
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Meanwhile, Professor of global Economics at Johns Hopkins University’s Europe Centre Michael Plummer has expressed doubt over the success of the newly formed community, saying: “The AEC is arguably the most ambitious economic integration programme in the developing world”.
