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ASEAN Summit Ends in Brunei
The two-day 7th summit of leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) concluded Tuesday afternoon in Bandar seri Begawan after discussing a wide range of issues and reaching agreements on a number of issues.
The issues discussed by the ASEAN leaders mainly focused on accelerating regional integration, and bridging the development gap, summit chairman and Brunei Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah told a press conference at the end of the summit.
"We are determined to strengthen our competitiveness and accelerate regional integration," Bolkiah said, adding the leaders agreed to go beyond the ASEAN Free Trade Area and the ASEAN Investment Area by deepening market liberalization for both trade and investment and agreed to speed up negotiations on liberalizing intra-ASEAN trade in services and to start negotiations on mutual recognition arrangements for professional services.
The leader agreed on the need for a Roadmap for Integration of ASEAN charting milestones including specific steps and timetables and instructed all ministers and senior officials to start work on the roadmap and submit their final proposals to the summit meeting in Cambodia next year, he said.
The leaders agreed to implement an ASEAN Integration System of Preferences by the beginning of January next year for newer members to allow Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam to gain tariff-free access to the more developed ASEAN markets as "bridging the development gap is crucial for regional integration."
"Our priorities are developing human resources, infrastructure and information technology," he said.
The leaders adopted a 2001 ASEAN Declaration on Join Action to Counter Terrorism, unequivocally condemning in the strongest terms the horrifying terrorist attacks in New York City, Washington and Pennsylvania on September 11, and committed themselves to counter, prevent and suppress all forms of terrorist acts in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and other international laws.
The leaders also adopted a Declaration on HIV/AIDS, pledging to lead and guide the national response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic as a national priority to prevent the spread of HIV infection and reduce the impact of the epidemic by integrating HIV/AIDS prevention, care, treatment, and to intensify inter-ministerial collaboration at the national and international levels to implement HIV/AIDS programs.
During the summit, the leaders of the 10 ASEAN countries also exchanged with the leaders of China, Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK) on building a closer East Asian partnership, and held three separate meetings with the leaders of China, Japan and ROK, resulting in several important initiatives with all the three countries.
Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and ROK President Kim Dae-jung attended the ASEAN plus three and ASEAN plus one meetings.
Bolkiah said the ASEAN leaders endorsed the proposal for a Framework on Economic Cooperation and to establish an ASEAN-China Free Trade Area as soon as possible.
ASEAN supported Japan's offer to set up an ASEAN Information and Human Network for Infectious Diseases Control and expressed appreciation to Japan for offering new information technology projects at the ASEAN promotion Center in Tokyo, he said.
Bolkiah said ASEAN leaders expressed their appreciation of ROK's offer of assistance in the areas of human resources development, information technology, health and the environment and also welcomed ROK's commitment to providing additional contributions of 2 million U.S. dollars to the ASEAN-ROK special fund for next year.
Bolkiah described the meetings with the leaders of ASEAN and China, Japan and ROK as "very constructive."
The Brunei summit was the first working summit for ASEAN leaders since they agreed in Singapore last year to remove the distinction between formal and informal summits in favor of ceremonial gatherings.
Founded in 1967, ASEAN now groups all 10 southeast Asian nations -- Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
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