PM Lee visits Vientiane for top regional meetings

VIENTIANE — Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will be in Vientiane today for a three-day visit to attend the Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean) Summits and Related Summits, the first time regional leaders will be meeting to take stock of regional integration efforts after they had formally established an integrated community late last year.

“As the first meeting among Asean Leaders following the establishment of the Asean Community, the Asean Leaders will discuss the ‘Implementation of the Asean Community Vision 2025 and the Way Forward’,” said a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) yesterday, referring to the grouping’s 10-year workplan that contains new blueprints for the three pillars of cooperation — political-security, economic and socio-cultural — that support the Asean Community.

According to the PMO’s statement, South-east Asian leaders will also launch a master plan to enhance physical, institutional and people-to-people connectivity throughout the region, as well as an updated workplan to address development gaps among member states.

In addition, leaders will sign a declaration on disaster response, which will affirm the role of the Asean Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance in coordinating collective responses to disasters in the region.

Amid efforts to improve working methods and to streamline the number of meetings as the grouping becomes more integrated, South-east Asian leaders will hold two back-to-back summits in the Laotian capital this year, a departure from previous years when they met twice every year. The Asean Charter stipulates that two summits will be held every year, and Laos, as the current Chair, has decided to convene two back-to-back meetings.

Mr Lee will be accompanied on the trip by his wife, Madam Ho Ching, Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr Vivian Balakrishnan and senior officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the PMO’s statement.

It added that Asean leaders will exchange views on regional and international issues, as they meet their counterparts from Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, the United States and the United Nations.

Asean and China will also be commemorating the 25th anniversary of dialogue relations, while another notable meeting will be the East Asian Summit — in what may be one of President Barack Obama’s final meetings with regional leaders as he calls time on an eight-year effort to pivot Washington’s foreign policy towards Asia. Mr Lee will also be meeting various regional leaders on the sidelines of the meetings.