ASEAN officials raise many proposals for inter-bloc linkage

VGP - At the ASEAN Senior Officials Meeting (SOM), the ASEAN Senior Economics Officials Meeting (SEOM), the meeting of the Senior Officials Committee for the ASEAN Socio- Cultural Community (SOCA), and the Joint Preparatory Meeting (JPM), the officials approved a draft program and the agenda and lists of documents to be submitted to ASEAN ministers at the 16th ASEAN Summit, which is slated for April 8-9 in Hà Nội.

March 03, 2010 3:23 PM GMT+7

The ASEAN Joint Preparatory Meeting for the 16th ASEAN Summit is opened in Hồ Chí Minh City in early March 2010

After three working days in, ASEAN’s meetings were wrapped up on Wednesday.

Senior ASEAN officials reached several agreements on boosting the cooperation and linkages among bloc members.

They also reviewed cooperation in the building the ASEAN Community of the three major pillars of political security, economy and culture.

Many issues and measures were raised to harmonize interests, facilitate the movement of goods, services and labor force.

According to Mr. Phạm Quang Vinh, Assistant to the Vietnamese FM and Head of Việt Nam’s ASEAN SOM, the officials also discussed the organization’s capacity in responding to global challenges.

Việt Nam’s proposals on the agenda and operations as well as documents to be submitted to ASEAN leaders at the 16th ASEAN Summit were approved by other ASEAN members.

Việt Nam, as the President of ASEAN and the host of the ASEAN Summit, will actively shake hands with other members to secure a successful summit, said Mr. Vinh.

He informed ASEAN members that Việt Nam is ready for the upcoming summit and has reached agreements with other members on the organization of additional activities in Việt Nam in 2010, the year during which it holds the rotating ASEAN Chairmanship.

By Phương Hạnh