ASEAN focuses on priorities, initiatives in 2020

PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc inspects preparations for 36th ASEAN Summit (Photo: VNA)

During the meeting, ASEAN leaders are scheduled to review the building of the ASEAN Community since the 35th summit, and discuss the implementation of priorities for this year as well as the grouping’s external affairs in the time ahead. They will also exchange views on regional and international issues of shared concern.

In this special circumstance, the leaders will focus on the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and how to enhance the bloc’s recovery capacity.

The summit brings together leaders of nations and ministries in charge of politics-security, culture-society, and economy from the 10 ASEAN member countries, ASEAN Secretary General Lim Jock Hoi, heads of ASEAN Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM) and ambassadors, among others.

It will feature a special session of the ASEAN leaders on women’s empowerment in the digital age initiated by Vietnam to mark the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.

The session aims to affirm the ASEAN leaders’ commitment to fully and effectively implementing goals set in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, promoting gender equality and improving women’s role in socio-economic development and ASEAN cooperation.

Vietnamese National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden, ASEAN Secretary General Lim Jock Hoi, and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific Armida Alisjahbana are invited to the event.

There will be a dialogue between leaders of the ASEAN countries and the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) led by Ngan, who is also the Chairperson of AIPA-41. NA Vice Chairwoman Tong Thi Phong, head of the Vietnamese delegation to AIPA, will attend the dialogue.

During the event, the ASEAN leaders and AIPA representatives will seek ways to enhance coordination between the two organisations in building the ASEAN Community towards the people and for the people.

The leaders will also hold a dialogue with ASEAN youths on promoting the role of the latter in the community building.

In another dialogue, representatives of the ASEAN Business Advisory Council (ABAC) are scheduled to present recommendations of the business community to the ASEAN leaders, in order to promote enterprises’ participation, and investment-trade freedom and facilitation in the region and the world.

The ASEAN leaders are expected to adopt the ASEAN Chair Statement on the outcomes of the 36th ASEAN Summit, a vision statement on ASEAN’s cohesion and proactive adaptation, and an ASEAN declaration on human resources development for the changing world of work.

The 36th ASEAN Summit offers an opportunity for Vietnam and the other ASEAN member countries to continue seeking measures to build the ASEAN Community, strengthen solidarity and unity, enhance mutual support, improve cooperation efficiency and focus on implementing priorities and initiatives in 2020, while improving ASEAN’s proactiveness in response to regional and international challenges, including COVID-19.