The 32nd ASEAN Summit, which opened on Friday, is the first Summit of 2018 during Singapore’s ASEAN chairmanship. Singapore has pushed forward an initiative for an ASEAN Year themed “Resilience and Innovation” to maintain rules-based regional order, address emerging security challenges, and boost economic integration and regional connectivity. These priorities have received support from other ASEAN members because they match ASEAN’s development needs.
Internal solidarity, community innovation: keys to ASEAN cooperation
Inheriting the outcomes of the previous Summit and the 50-year development of ASEAN, Singapore, rotating ASEAN chair for 2018, wants to set a new milestone for the Association. It has set an ambitious agenda of strengthening ASEAN’s self-resilience and ability to respond to challenges, promoting innovation, and seizing the opportunities of the 4th Industrial Revolution to make the region more competitive.
This year’s Summit will adopt the usual Chairman’s Statement, the ASEAN Leaders’ Vision for a Resilient and Innovative ASEAN, documents defining of the ASEAN Smart Cities Network, and the ASEAN Leaders' Declaration on Cyber Security Cooperation.
To help realize their vision for ASEAN Community, they will also seek to improve the ASEAN cooperative apparatus by promoting regional connectivity, effective inter-sector and inter-pillar orientations, and relations with external partners.
Vietnam’s contributions to the agenda
Vietnam supports Singapore’s chairmanship and its “Resilience and Innovation” initiative and wants to prioritize a united ASEAN with a rules-based regional architecture. It urges member countries to promote the community’s common interests and push negotiations on the Code of Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (COC).
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc will deliver a speech at the Summit’s plenary meeting and a retreat and hold bilateral meetings with other ASEAN leaders.
At the ASEAN Joint Consultative Meeting in Singapore last month, Vietnam’s representative repeated the country’s commitment to actively participate in constructing the ASEAN Community. He voiced Vietnam’s full support and commitment to boosting this year’s initiatives and progressing on the path of community construction. Vietnam is studying Singapore’s performance to prepare for its own Chairmanship of ASEAN in 2020.