The dynamic growth of ASEAN economies in the wake of the 2008–2009 global financial crisis was one factor driving East Asian growth more broadly.ASEAN actively promotes regional integration and connectivity through its community building process—scheduled for completion by 2015—and its various economic cooperation partnerships with China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, India, Australia, New Zealand, and others.
The reshaping of the world economy, the increase of economic connectivity and integration, and the shift in growth models toward sustainability generate both opportunities and challenges for countries and regions. ASEAN must be adaptive enough to maintain growth as it works to encourage East Asian integration and connectivity.
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Deputy PM and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh
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ASEAN member nations should focus on three important points.
To be the nucleus of regional integration and connectivity, ASEAN countries need internal strength. This demands ustainable economic structures resilient to outside turbulence. Vietnam’s economic restructuring focuses on public expenditure, the banking sector, and enterprises. We also actively engage in regional and international economic linkages and promote multi-faceted cooperation with our partners.
Extending ASEAN’s inter-regional economic ties reinforces the bloc and opens its members to the advantages of operating as a single economt with 600 million members and a combined GDP of US$2.3 trillion.
ASEAN should seize the opportunities of intra-ASEAN integration, integration with existing FTAs Partners in East Asia, and the establishment of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) by 2015. The latter would incorporate half of the world’s population and account for one third of global GDP. Connectivity networks like these generate new momentum for regional economic development.
In addition to the Community building process, ASEAN needs a feasible post-2015 integration and connectivity roadmap based on past progress and tailored to ASEAN’s particular realities. It should anticipate the possibility of developing ASEAN into a Customs Union, or even a different, more highly integrated model.
The roadmap must consider development issues such as green growth, clean energy, water security, the environment and include addressing exisiting and emerging development disparities.
Vietnam has urged ASEAN to place poverty reduction and sustainable development at the centre of its development agenda in a manner compatible with and supplementing the UN’s post-2015 development goals.
Third, ASEAN should work with its partners to ensure an environment conducive to integration and connectivity. The association needs to maintain unity, uphold shared responsibilities and maximize its strategic centrality—, especially in relation to regional peace, security, and stability.
ASEAN needs to concur on conduct norms that can eventually lead to a binding code, including expanding the Bali Declaration on the Principles of Mutually Beneficial Relations.
Vietnam and other ASEAN members share the view that the parties concerned must settle disputes peacefully, exercise restraint, and respect and observe international law including the 1982 UNCLOS. While honouring their DOC, parties should also work towards an early completion of a more rigorous Code of Conduct (COC).
They have been calling for substantive COC negotiations between ASEAN and China since the first official ASEAN-China SOM consultation last September.
