SINGAPORE : Human resource and infrastructure development of ASEAN countries will be on the agenda of the incoming Secretary-General of ASEAN, Dr Surin Pitsuwan.

With over 500 million people in ASEAN, there is a need to build a sense of belonging among the people.

At the inaugural ASEAN and Asia forum on Friday, Dr Surin said one way to do that is through economic integration to ensure that poorer people are not left behind. Otherwise, cohesiveness will take a longer time.

However before that, there should be a concerted effort to invest in the people.

Dr Surin said: "If we don't address the problem of that gap - income gap or wealth gap - we will have a lot of pressure on all of us, not only just one country, not only one capital, but together we'll have to deal with that.

"The fortunate thing is that the dialogue partners understand this, the international institution understands this, the World Bank, the ADB, have expressed their keen interest in helping with this income gap management."

He added: "I think we have to start with the human resource management. Without human resource that could deal with our own national problems, we won't be able to communicate, we won't be able to cooperate, we won't be able to plan anything regionally. So we need to start with human resource development, then infrastructure."

This is something ASEAN's dialogue partners like China, Japan, Australia and even the European Union want to help in - building infrastructure to give people access to better facilities for their health, education and livelihood.

Sharing his perspectives on the recently-concluded ASEAN Summit, outgoing ASEAN Secretary General Ong Keng Yong noted that ASEAN has made much progress over the years.

And countries are now thinking in terms of regional strategies and not only national strategies to benefit one another.

Mr Ong said: "Collectively, we can do a lot of things and what we can do is that the friends outside the ASEAN membership like to treat ASEAN as a collective, because they are also having various options in engaging Southeast Asia. China and Japan - they engage ASEAN collectively because there are certain things which... can only be done as a collective."

Japan has several programmes like climate change and energy. The Japanese work with ASEAN as a group because they can get more results than working with individual nations.

He added that the group must now make the best of opportunities to further improve itself.

Mr Ong said: "If we can make good initiatives like ASEAN and Indian education, or whatever Nalanda project we are working on, that way we can grow our ASEAN identity, ASEAN awareness. I'm quite sure we will have a very good future.

"The only thing is - how many potshots ASEAN will receive as a result of political issues such as Myanmar or whatever (may) come our way? I think with 40 years behind us, it's no longer a question of whether we need ASEAN, but rather how to make the best of this situation in our menu of strategies."

So Mr Ong said that it was a different ASEAN that met in Singapore during the recent summit. For one, leaders did engage each other in various issues such as the issue of climate change and this he added is a good start ahead of a conference on climate change in Bali next month. - CNA/ch