Vietnam wins ASEAN praise

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung last week said now was the “decisive stage” for the construction of ASEAN Community by 2015, so member states must make greater efforts in building the community, especially the Economic Pillar, one of the community’s three pillars.

Dung underlined the need to boost economic cooperation in building the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity (MPAC) including road, sea and air route, and people-to-people connectivity. At present, only 37 per cent of MPAC’s connectivity norms were completed.

“To step up the realisation of the MPAC, it is necessary to mobilise all resources within and outside ASEAN. Within ASEAN, we need to promote and encourage the government and private sectors to engage in the establishment of MPAC,” Dung said.

He urged ASEAN member states to maintain solidarity and its central focus in dealing with issues related to the bloc’s interests, especially peace, security, cooperation and development in the region. “This is an important condition to build up the ASEAN Community by 2015 and the post-2015 development stage,” he noted.

ASEAN, he said, should play a central role in enhancing dialogues, building confidence, sharing standards of conduct, and utilizing the existing tools for political-security cooperation. These include  the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, Southeast Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty, ASEAN’s Six-point Principle on the East Sea, Declaration of the East Asia Summit on the Principles for Mutually Beneficial Relations, and the ASEAN Regional Forum.

ASEAN, Dung said, should step up cooperation in solving non-traditional security issues and emerging challenges, such as terrorism, trans-national crimes, water security, and maritime safety.

Dung proposed nations to support ASEAN-China in fully implementing the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) and heading for the Code of Conducts (COC). He also proposed nations to support ASEAN in implementing its Six-point Principle on the East Sea in order to ensure all disputes in the sea were settled via peaceful solutions with respect to the international law, especially the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the DOC.

Dung also met with counterparts including  Singapore’s Lee Hsien Loong, Cambodia’s Hun Sen, Malaysia’s Najib Razak and New Zealand’s John Key. These meetings were aimed to rivet the multi-faceted relationship between Vietnam and these nations, particularly the economic, trade and investment cooperation.

ASEAN-21 was used by leaders to vow to further boost the establishment of the ASEAN Community by 2015, particularly the establishment of the Economic Pillar, with a view to bridging the development gap in the region and turning ASEAN into a single window with high competitiveness.

ASEAN member states discussed solutions to further cement their cooperation in all sectors. ASEAN and its partners also sought measures to sharpen their cooperation, for the sake of peace, stability and development, and support ASEAN in building its community by 2015.

Brunei will chair ASEAN from January, 2013. The bloc’s new general secretary for the 2013-2017 term will be Vietnam’s deputy minister of Foreign Affairs Le Luong Minh.