16th ASEAN summit ends

Source: Sify.com

The 16th Summit of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) concluded here Friday, with a pledge to effectively implement the bloc's cooperation pacts over the next five years, Xinhua reported.

The 10 ASEAN countries are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

A joint statement issued by Vietnam, which holds the bloc's current presidency, said the ASEAN has agreed to implement the existing pacts to achieve sustained economic growth.

To achieve a resilient, dynamic and sustained ASEAN community, all parties agreed to cooperate on the education sector as a priority during the two-day summit.

ASEAN leaders noted the ASEAN Charter, which is the institutional framework of the member-states, needed to be implemented at the earliest.

For the implementation of the Charter, progress has been made in developing legal documents, especially signing of the protocol related to Dispute Settlement Mechanisms.

In the joint statement, the leaders called on enhancing the bloc's connectivity in Mekong and other regions of ASEAN and promoting future East Asian connectivity.

To that aim, the bloc is exerting efforts in developing a Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity to be submitted to the 17th ASEAN summit in October 2010.

All parties also showed commitment to intensifying efforts to address climate change and other transnational challenges by adopting the ASEAN leaders' statement on joint response to climate change.

The statement said that significant progress has been achieved in the implementation of the ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC), ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) and ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) plans.

Regarding external relations, ASEAN is actively exchanging views with China, Japan, South Korea, India, Russia and the UN, it said.