Step by step towards ASEAN Community in 2015

Secretary General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Le Luong Minh, representing ASEAN at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ministerial Meeting on Trade, held on April 20-21 in Surabaya, Indonesia, affirmed the achievements and determination to continue promoting the results achieved in the process of regional connectivity and integration towards building the ASEAN Community in 2015.

ASEAN Secretary General Le Luong Minh. (Photo: VNA)

A VNA correspondent in Jakarta said that speaking at the conference, Secretary General Le Luong Minh highly appreciated APEC and the Government of Indonesia, the host country and APEC Chair in 2013, for creating an opportunity for the ASEAN Secretariat to introduce its efforts, results, lessons and experiences in the process of moving towards the Common Home in 2015, especially since the 2012 APEC MRT in Kazan, Russia.

Secretary General Le Luong Minh stated that on the occasion of the 45th anniversary of ASEAN's existence and development last year, the Association's leaders once again affirmed their commitment to moving towards an ASEAN Community by 2015 and ensuring a regional structure and environment that is constructive for development. One of the most outstanding results of ASEAN in 2012 was the launch of negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) between the 10 member countries of the bloc and 6 Free Trade Agreement (FTA) partners, including Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and China.

Secretary-General Le Luong Minh said that ASEAN, with its action plan “Our People – Our Future,” has set and is pursuing priorities to establish support mechanisms for ASEAN small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), enhance ASEAN’s competitiveness, encourage the participation of young businesses in ASEAN, strengthen relationships with dialogue partners, and establish an ASEAN business network.

Since the 2012 APEC MRT in Kazan, the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Blueprint completion rate has increased from 67.9% to the current 77.5%. ASEAN is stepping up efforts to implement measures to achieve the targets set for the AEC Blueprint, and has now eliminated 99% of tariffs among ASEAN-6 (including Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore).

ASEAN is also striving to establish a regional certification system by 2015 and this year, ASEAN will complete negotiations on the 9th comprehensive service commitment, the 6th comprehensive financial service commitment and the 8th comprehensive air transport service commitment, to further promote liberalization in trade and services under the ASEAN Framework Agreement on Services (AFAS).

Secretary-General Le Luong Minh emphasized the importance of the member countries signing the ASEAN Agreement on Movement of Persons (MNP) in November 2012 to further promote the flow of human resources in trade in goods, services and investment in the region and related to this field is the Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) on tourism professionals.

According to Secretary-General Le Luong Minh, with the ASEAN Comprehensive Investment Agreement (ACIA) coming into force last year, ASEAN is now focusing its efforts on the effective implementation of ACIA, especially in terms of liberalization, promotion, facilitation and protection of investment. ASEAN is also prioritizing the narrowing of development gaps within and between member countries, and increasing support for the development of the private sector and SMEs.

Referring to the relationship between ASEAN and APEC, Secretary General Le Luong Minh said that as they are facing common regional and global challenges, the two sides need to strengthen cooperation, share experiences as well as connectivity and integration initiatives; in which the two Secretariats play a coordinating role first, towards completing the community building goals of ASEAN and APEC./.

According to (TTXVN) - LT