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| ASEAN leaders pose for a group photo at the opening ceremony of the 44th and 45th ASEAN Summits in Vientiane, Laos on October 9-11. (Photo: Nhat Bac) |
With more than 20 activities, the 44th and 45th ASEAN Summits and related Summits (October 8-11) in Vientiane (Laos) discussed the contents of the ASEAN 2024 Theme - "Promoting Connectivity and Resilience" to build a strong community in the face of all challenges. The Vietnamese delegation, led by Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, conveyed many important messages at the Summit.
Major areas of work such as the ASEAN Community building process, including promoting the timely completion of the 2025 Blueprints and the development of the ASEAN Community Vision 2045, are important focuses throughout. ASEAN leaders also reviewed and oriented relations between ASEAN and its partners, especially promoting cooperation in potential areas of current interest, and discussed international and regional issues.
Clear guidelines, positive results
ASEAN 2024 takes place amid a gray picture of a volatile and unpredictable world and regional situation. However, ASEAN still maintains its solidarity and central role, strong in the face of many external fluctuations, to appreciate the efforts of the Lao Chairman with the correctness right from the theme "ASEAN: Promoting Connectivity and Resilience", implemented based on nine priorities.
Looking back, the leaders of the Association countries all saw that ASEAN cooperation continued to make many important strides, despite difficulties and challenges both within and outside the region.
The 2025 Community Building Blueprints have entered the final stage of implementation, recording a high implementation rate across all three pillars, especially politics and security at 99.6%. Notably, under the coordination of the ASEAN 2024 “captain”, the development of the ASEAN Community Vision 2045 Implementation Strategies has been accelerated; cooperation to strengthen supply chain connectivity, restructure strategies to narrow the development gap, enhance health and climate resilience, and enhance the role and participation of women and children has been promoted. At the same time, cooperation with partners has made many new developments, continuing to consolidate ASEAN's central role.
| ASEAN needs to strengthen solidarity, unity and promote its central role. These are also the values that have created ASEAN's success and prestige, helping ASEAN overcome difficulties and challenges, becoming the center of peace and cooperation. Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh |
Clearly, with the guiding principle of “connectivity” and “resilience”, the priorities and initiatives during Laos’s Chairmanship year have contributed to the common goal of building a more connected and resilient ASEAN Community. This reflects the desire and efforts to transform Laos from a landlocked country into a regional and international connectivity hub. “Laos fulfills its commitments and obligations with a high sense of responsibility for the common interests of ASEAN,” General Secretary and President of Laos Thongloun Sisoulith affirmed at the first event of the summit.
ASEAN leaders believe that the connotations of “connectivity” and “self-reliance” need to be further specified and deepened in cooperation strategies for the new period, thereby enhancing ASEAN’s adaptability. At the same time, it is necessary to maintain ASEAN’s strategic balance in implementing foreign relations, continue to ask partners to respect ASEAN’s central role, and work with ASEAN to promote the values of dialogue, cooperation and trust, uphold the rule of law, and contribute constructively and responsibly to peace, security and stability.
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| Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh speaks at ASEAN. (Photo: Nhat Bac) |
Self-reliance, overcoming all challenges
“More than ever, ASEAN needs to take self-reliance as the foundation to reach new heights, take connectivity as the focus to make breakthroughs, and take innovation as the driving force to pioneer and lead,” Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh emphasized at the plenary session of the ASEAN Summit.
With a willingness to contribute and make every effort, Vietnam constantly thinks about the future of ASEAN, including its own future. In important ASEAN meetings, Vietnam always sends many messages, and at this conference, those messages were highlighted by Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh with easy-to-remember keywords such as self-reliance and strategic autonomy, combined with external connectivity, innovation, etc. These are important orientations of ASEAN in the coming time.
Specifically, first, self-reliance and strategic autonomy are the foundation for ASEAN to stand firm in the face of all changes and overcome all challenges. Accordingly, ASEAN needs to strengthen solidarity and unity in diversity, adhere to standards of conduct and persist in ASEAN's principled stance on international and regional issues. ASEAN needs to enhance its self-reliance capacity, promote endogenous resources to maintain internal strategic stability and respond promptly to external risks.
Second, promoting internal connectivity combined with external connectivity, public-private connectivity, and multi-sectoral connectivity, focusing on infrastructure, institutional and human connectivity, is a strategic breakthrough for ASEAN.
Third, innovation is the driving force and driving force for ASEAN to catch up, progress together and surpass the region and the world. Accordingly, ASEAN needs to promote cooperation in developing an innovation ecosystem, developing regional digital cooperation frameworks, along with developing governance criteria for emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence.
Up to now, Vietnam has closely coordinated with members to effectively implement cooperation priorities and initiatives, supporting and assisting Laos in successfully assuming the responsibility of ASEAN Chair.
Along with that, Vietnam has made many important contributions to ASEAN cooperation with the ASEAN Future Forum 2024 as well as the United Nations Future Summit. Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh announced that Vietnam will continue to host the ASEAN Future Forum in 2025 and hopes that countries will continue to support Vietnam in successfully organizing this event.
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| Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh speaks at the plenary session of the Conference on October 9. (Photo: Nhat Bac) |
Good businessman, economic breakthrough
In addition to the solid political and security pillars, the current ASEAN economic picture stands out with many bright spots as it maintains positive growth momentum, continuing to be an attractive investment destination with a total foreign direct investment of 230 billion USD in 2023, second only to the United States. ASEAN economic growth is forecast to be 4.6% in 2024 and 4.8% in 2025, far exceeding the world average. ASEAN is determined to accelerate negotiations on agreements both within the bloc and between ASEAN and its partners.
Coming to the framework of this Conference, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh brought much enthusiasm to open up the source of ASEAN economic connectivity, specifically through the main features emphasized at the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit (ASEAN BIS) 2024.
That is the spirit of “pioneering year” to form a “team of good entrepreneurs” in ASEAN, including: Pioneering in promoting self-reliance, a self-reliant ASEAN cannot lack a team of self-reliant ASEAN entrepreneurs; pioneering in connecting the economy, taking people and businesses as the center and subject; pioneering in innovation, startups to combat climate change, population aging, natural disasters, epidemics, etc.; pioneering breakthroughs in strategic infrastructure and pioneering in integration with the bloc and the world.
The Prime Minister emphasized that ASEAN businesses and entrepreneurs have made worthy contributions to the development of ASEAN, which is the center of self-reliance, self-reliance and growth. The head of the Vietnamese Government did not forget to call on businesses to come and invest in Vietnam.
On the occasion of attending the 44th and 45th ASEAN Summits and related Summits, the Prime Minister had meetings with leaders of member countries and partners to promote cooperation and discuss issues of mutual concern.
Thus, the working trip to Laos, harmoniously integrating Vietnam's priority cooperation areas and the concerns of ASEAN member countries and partners by Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, once again demonstrated that Vietnam is always "devoted" to the "common home", proactively, positively and responsibly contributing with the ASEAN Chair and member countries to strengthen the central role and promote the Association's voice for peace, stability and development in the region and the world.
| The countries agreed to strengthen ASEAN's principled stance on the East Sea, emphasizing the respect for international law, and the peaceful settlement of disputes on the basis of international law and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The leaders highly appreciated the efforts of the Lao Chairman and the Chairman's Special Envoy to Myanmar, emphasizing that the Five-Point Consensus is a guiding document for ASEAN's efforts to support Myanmar. |
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