KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 22 – Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the establishment of the ASEAN Community by year-end will not only benefit its people but propel the region to be a more developed and integrated bloc. He said to realise the vision, various plans had been undertaken throughout this year to steer ASEAN’s peoples to together uphold the advocacy of creating a truly people-centred ASEAN.
“ASEAN will be a more powerful vehicle for the realisation of our peoples’ aspirations, good governance, transparency, high standard of living, sustainable development, further empowerment of women and create greater opportunity,” he said in his opening remarks at the Plenary Session of the 27th ASEAN Summit here on Saturday.
ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The plenary session was attended by Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, the Philippines President Benigno S Aquino III, Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha, Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and Laos Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong.
Prime Minister of Cambodia, Hun Sen; Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Myanmar President U Thein Sein and Sultan of Brunei Sultan Hasanal Bolkiah. Najib said Malaysia had fulfilled its promises of creating the ASEAN Community and ASEAN Vision 2025 which had been outlined when taking over the chairmanship from Myanmar last year.
“I’m gratified that we have successfully completed the tasks”, he said while thanking ASEAN members for working closely with Malaysia throughout the chairmanship. In the meantime, ASEAN leaders Sunday are also expected to sign the ‘Kuala Lumpur Declaration on the Establishment of the ASEAN Community’ and ‘Kuala Lumpur Declaration on ASEAN 2025:Forging Ahead Together’.
