Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Brunei Lim Jock Hoi is expected to become Secretary General of the ASEAN (Photo: AFP/VNA)Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Brunei Lim Jock Hoi is expected to become Secretary General of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) after ASEAN foreign ministers agreed to nominate him for the post, official sources said.
Lim will take over from current chief Le Luong Minh of Vietnam, who will be wrapping up his five-year term at the end of this year.
The Brunei government proposed him for the job, which is rotated among the 10 ASEAN countries in alphabetical order, and the nomination was accepted by the ASEAN foreign ministers at their meeting in July.
What remains now is just the "formality" of the ASEAN leaders officially endorsing him at their summit in Manila, the Philippines, in mid-November.
Lim was Brunei's chief negotiator in the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade talks all the way until its conclusion in 2015. He is expected to start his new job in January 2018 and manage more than 1,000 ASEAN meetings each year./.