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Keynote Address at the Opening of the 6th
Asia Economic Forum on “Maximizing Asia’s Strategic Roles in the World:
Opportunities, Challenges, and Future Prospects”
Phnom Penh, January 20th, 2010
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen!
Today it is my
pleasure and privilege to be here once again to join the 6th Asia Economic Forum
on “Maximizing Asia’s Strategic Roles in the World: Opportunities,
Challenges, and Future Prospects”, jointly hosted by the University of
Cambodia and the International Foundation for Arts and Culture of Tokyo.
First of all, I
would like to extend my warmest welcome to Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen
government officials, economists, and speakers attending this important event.
This forum is indeed a great opportunity for all of us to exchange dialogue and
experiences on regional economy, finance and development while the global
economic crisis is hampering Asia’s growth, financial soundness and trade. In
addition to the pursuit of key solutions to deal with the crisis, this forum
will also try to explore options to promote growth and political stability as
well as targeted responses to deal with climate change, human development, and
development gap. Succeeding in the pursuit does not only mean less impact from
the crisis, but also quicker development for the region.
Although the
present sign of global economic recovery is hardly visible, we strongly believe
the East Asia will recover more quickly than other regions through domestic
demand stimulation and export promotion. Adding to the lesson learned from the
crisis, ASEAN can now deepen its integration process, especially in the fields
of finance, trade, investment as well as cross-border transport, agriculture and
tourism.
In this spirit,
I totally support the prospect of integrating ASEAN and the linkage of physical
infrastructure such as roads, bridges, railways, air and sea within Cambodia,
Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar and the whole ASEAN will bring about enormous benefits
to member countries, through the promotion of intra-trade, investment and
tourism as well as narrowing of development gap amongst the members. Along with
this, to maximize gain from the vast economic potential in the region, ASEAN
must also focus on soft infrastructure, especially trade facilitation, customs
procedures simplification and automation, investment and SMEs promotion and
strengthening economic integration. Success in these tasks will allow us to
minimize cost of production and promote domestic consumption which in return
will boost the region’s competitiveness.
The effect of
the global financial and economic crisis will extend amid some reports of
recovery in 2010. In this sense, I think Asia’s increasing strategic role in the
world must be fulfilled. Under this circumstance, Asia must grab the opportunity
and uproot the region’s common challenges. The strengthening of Asia’s role must
start with the reassessment of the crisis’s impact on economy and politics,
social well-being, environment and other areas in Asia.
In this context,
I believe the strengthening of ASEAN’s internal integration will be an urgent
priority since all the member countries are key to political stability and
socio-economic development that can influence the whole Asia. In this sense, the
formation of the ASEAN Community by 2015 which includes ASEAN’s security -
politics community, economic community and socio-cultural community must start
with the ASEAN Constitution, the key catalyst for accelerating, deepening and
harmonizing ASEAN integration.
Along with the
achievements made so far and the vision to be achieved by ASEAN and the whole
Asia, I have noticed that we have a number of works in front of us which require
our joint efforts to continue strengthening the strategic roles of ASEAN for the
future of Asia. Those works are as follows:
1. Promoting the maintenance of political stability, security,
harmonization and regional peace
I would like to
note that ASEAN has played a significant role for regional cooperation, security
and politics, starting from the signing of the ASEAN charter. This issue has
been supported by the United States recently through the participation of the US
in the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), which reflect the US’s commitment
to maintain security and peace in the region.
Through many
forums, which have been initiated by the ASEAN such as ASEAN+1 with other
dialogue partners, ASEAN+3, East Asia Summit and ASEAN Regional Forum have
played crucial roles in maintaining peace, political stability and security in
the region.
In fact, the
strategic role of ASEAN for this issue is truly essential. This role is the
profession of ASEAN and Asia. Without peace, political stability and social
order, there will be no development even the life of ASEAN and Asia could not be
sustained. In this regard, the ASEAN member states must try to maintain
political stability, internal security and good relations with each other. The
achievements of these works will help to reduce the impact of the global
economic and financial crisis in the region as well as strengthening the
cooperation for socio-economic development.
Along with this,
I believe that when we strengthen the principles of not interfering with
internal affairs of the member states and when we demonstrate the ability of
ASEAN in facilitating and solving the security and political issues, related to
the bilateral relation of its member states, we will achieve the future of ASEAN
with full fledge integration in ASEAN and the whole Asia because the leading
role of ASEAN is the significant energy of Asia. Of course, by then we all will
share a common faith from the glorious future of Asia due to the fast moving
economic growth and the size of population, which is a big market. Moreover, the
core role of ASEAN for the future of Asia is to continue implementing the
strategy against terrorism, transnational crimes, pirates, fighting against
nuclear weapon and all kinds of disastrous war.
2. Promoting the progress of Asia’s economy and trade
In order to
promote this strategy, ASEAN should try to quickly reduce the impact of the
global economic and financial downturn through boosting investment, increasing
export of agricultural products and promoting cooperation in the financial
sector, according to the spirit of multilateral Chiang Mai Initiatives,
increasing the reserved budget, such as the reservation of USD 120 billion for
accelerating the development of ASEAN economy. Furthermore, ASEAN should try to
continue to make sure that the Free Trade Area between ASEAN-China, ASEAN-India,
ASEAN-Japan and ASEAN-Korea are to promote trade between the ASEAN and dialogue
partners. Along with this, ASEAN must make sure the DOHA ROUND resumes the
negotiation process in order to enable the developing countries to develop
according to their strategic goals. For this issue, ASEAN must also focus on the
enhancement of roles of the private sector to be the engine of growth.
3. Accelerating the development of the East Asian Community
This strategic
role is the bridge in developing an East Asian Community, which is the building
of interest for the whole Asian people. In overall, ASEAN must try to push for
the building of East Asian Community through ASEAN regional integration and East
Asia Integration. The building of both communities should be done at the same
time. The East Asian Community should be started by not delaying until the
completion of building the three communities of ASEAN by 2015. On the other
hand, the initiative to create another community, which is the establishment of
Asia-Pacific Community, is not necessary as ASEAN has already had a lot of
mechanisms. Through this, we should strengthen existing mechanisms rather than
creating new ones with late implementation.
4. Preventing climate change
Climate change
is still a threat for us all. We all have been aware about the close
relationship between climate change and natural disaster. Through this, we must
be brave to put out sharp measures to cope with this challenge. In this sense,
ASEAN must be more responsible in promoting the implementation of the existing
mechanisms in order to effectively and timely deal with the climate change.
Strategically, ASEAN must raise its own profile to combat climate change in
order to ensure happiness, particularly the lives of Asians.
5. Ensuring food security
As the world
population is increasing, food security becomes a long-term and chronic issue
which all countries must cope with urgently. The hike in food prices had casted
adverse effect on poverty and made poor people vulnerable to food shortages and
malnutrition. Food security remains a major concern for the whole Asia because
most of the countries are still developing countries. Indeed, this also brings
up new opportunity for those countries in our region that have great potential
in the agriculture sector.
At the same
time, we are fully aware that the future economic growth in Asia will escalate
more demand for energy as well. Therefore, in response to the increase in demand
for energy, we inevitably have to utilize bio-fuel which will play an
alternative role in our development. However, through the recent increase in
food prices and various impacts on our people, we noticed that bio-fuel
development will not be beneficial because land use for food cultivation should
not be utilized for bio-fuel crops. This requires us to reconsider the balance
between growing food and bio-fuel crops. Therefore, ASEAN must play the role in
ensuring enough food that is sanitary for the health of our people. In parallel,
ASEAN must pay attention to cultivate agricultural food crops to secure food security as well as reduce the risk
from overusing chemical fertilizer.
6. Disaster management
ASEAN must play
a very potential strategic role in confronting natural disaster through the
establishment of mechanism to manage and prepare for disasters such flood,
drought, volcano eruption, typhoon and earthquake. Of course, some disasters are
of huge magnitude that a country cannot cope with alone. In this sense, we must
closely cooperate to strengthen our preparedness and build the capacity of each
country to overcome these disasters. Information sharing such as through the
early warning system and joint exercise should be extended to cover all
countries in Asia.
7. Preventing
communicable diseases
Strengthening
the strategic role of ASEAN in protecting and preventing all kinds of
communicable diseases in this millennium is vital in ensuring the wellbeing and
future of Asian people. This is the common role of the world in which
cooperation between countries in region to promote researches to produce
medicines and vaccines for preventing any disease are the type of task to be
jointly accelerated.
8. Promoting young
leadership education for the future
Undoubtedly,
long-term sustainability and the future of Asia lies on the leadership of next
generations, especially those young leaders in Asian countries. In this sense,
Asian must take a very crucial role in building successors through strengthening
and expanding education and training programs and providing encouragement for
wider participation of youth.
9. Promoting the
prestige of ASEAN on the international stage
Another strategy
that ASEAN must adopt is to raise its prestige on international stage. This task
can be achieved by maintaining firm regional internal solidarity of ASEAN,
ensuring and strengthening peace, political stability, security and social
order.
Once again, on
behalf of the Cambodian government, I would like to warmly welcome the presence
of Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen who contribute both time and
experience at the 6th Asia Economic Forum, 2010 which
being held in the Kingdom of Cambodia at the moment. I hope that the results of
this forum will provide important knowledge for the promotion of peace,
political stability and social order as well as economic development in the
region and the world.
I would like to
wish Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen attending this forum with the four gems
of Buddhist blessing; Longevity, Nobility, Health and Strength.
May I now
announce the opening of the 6th Asia Economic Forum, 2010.
EndItem.
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