Leaders from ten ASEAN member states attended the opening ceremony of the 20th ASEAN Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on April 3.
Addressing the event, Cambodian PM Hun Sen affirmed that ASEAN’s development over more than the past four decades proves the block’s competence of building the people-centered ASEAN Community towards economic prosperity and political stability, noting it as the reason why Cambodia chose the ASEAN Presidency Year’s theme “ASEAN: One Community, One Destiny”.
He pointed out Cambodia’s seven priorities throughout the Presidency Year, including enhancing the capacity of a financial institution which could secure stability, prevent and resolve possible crisis.
The Cambodian PM called on ASEAN member states to accelerate the ratification and deployment of agreements and protocols in accordance with the roadmap for building the ASEAN Community.
Priority should be giving to establishing the ASEAN Economic Community by 2015 in order to form a unified ASEAN market with free movement of goods, services, investment and skilled labor.
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ASEAN leaders at the 20th ASEAN Summit – Photo:VGP
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The realization of the Master Plan for ASEAN Connectivity needs to be beefed up as it is the key for narrowing development gap and guarantee the success of ASEAN integration, he said.
Besides, it is necessary to improve the apparatus and operation mechanism for the region’s natural disasters management.
Moreover, agricultural cooperation should also be strengthened and more efforts should be made to settle issues relating to infrastructure, technology, and capital among others to safeguard food security for the region.
PM Hun Sen said that for the realization of the ASEAN Community by 2015, cooperation should be expanded beyond the Governmental level to all sectors, organizations, and particularly each ASEAN citizen.
At the Summit, ASEAN leaders will discuss and approve documents like Phnom Penh Declaration on “ASEAN: One Community, One Destiny”, a Joint Declaration for a Drug-Free ASEAN, an ASEAN Chair’s Declaration on the 45th founding anniversary of ASEAN and the results of the ASEAN summit.
After the opening ceremony, PM Nguyen Tan Dung and other ASEAN leaders attended the plenary session.
Hai Minh
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