Thai PM: ASEAN should be community of action, connectivity and peoples
Thailand’s Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva today said when the member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) become a single economic community in 2015, the ASEAN Community should be “a community of action, connectivity and peoples”.
In his keynote address to mark the 42nd ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in Phuket, PM Abhisit, on behalf of the chair of the 10-nation bloc, expressed confident that ASEAN will continue to move forward towards the goal of becoming a community so the member countries should begin to think about what type of community they want to see.
In Thailand’s view, he said, the ASEAN Community should firstly be a “community of action” which must be able to act decisively and in a timely manner to address both internal and external threats and challenges to the security and welfare of its member states and peoples.
“We must show to the world that ASEAN is ready to meet any challenge and is well-prepared to act decisively. We must continue to nurture a culture of concerted action in our organisation, which will help to reinforce ASEAN centrality,” he said.
Secondly, the Thai premier said, the Community of 2015 should be a “community of connectivity” where transportation linkages must be in place and relevant rules and regulations are harmonised to facilitate travelling, trade and investment.
Thirdly, he said, the ASEAN Community should then be a “community of peoples” where peoples of the region have equitable access to human development opportunities so that they can truly become the driving force in making the Community be self-sustaining.
“We should do this by promoting and investing in education, life-long learning and other capacity-building. This is what we call making a long-term investment in the Community’s future that will, in turn, help make the Community-building process sustainable,” he said.
Earlier in his speech, the Thai PM said when Thailand assumed the chairmanship of ASEAN last July, the country set three important goals to achieve, and it is attaining them.
The three goals, he said, were implementing the ASEAN Charter, building ASEAN as a people-oriented organisation, and making it an effective organisation to meet challenges at regional and international levels.
In implementing the ASEAN Charter, making the regional pact a more rules-based organisation, the Thai premier said, ASEAN is creating dispute settlement mechanisms, developing new organs including a Committee of Permanent Representatives, setting in motion various Community Councils that will drive its community-building forward under the Cha-am Hua Hin Roadmap for an ASEAN Community.
Meanwhile, he said ASEAN is also “on track and on time” to launch the ASEAN
human rights body at the upcoming summits in October.
Thailand will host the 15th ASEAN and related summits in October and later pass on its chairmanship to Vietnam in December.
The 42nd ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM), the Post Ministerial Conferences (PMC) and the 16th ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in the southern resort of Phuket will run till Thursday.
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