10/28/2010
17th ASEAN summit to focus on development
The 17th ASEAN Summit and other related meetings from October 28-30 are to kick-start in Vietnam later on Thursday, focusing on sustainable development in the southeast Asian group's member states.
The three-day event will see 11 major meetings, including the 17th ASEAN Summit, the regular ASEAN+1 Summit with partners, such as including China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and India, as well as with Russia, Australia, New Zealand and the United Nations; the ASEAN+3 Summit (with China, Japan and the Republic of Korea), and the fifth East Asia Summit.
The summit will be attended by 18 leaders of ASEAN member countries and the bloc's partners plus the United Nations Secretary General. For the first time, the Russian Foreign Minister and the US Secretary of State will also attend the East Asia Summit as special guests.
At these summits, ASEAN and its partners will discuss ways of developing each country and for the sake of peace and stability in the region and the world.
The summit will discuss how to cement ties between ASEAN and its partners. It will also discuss and work out measures to raise the bloc's capacity to cope with emerging challenges such as post-economic crisis recovery, sustainable development, climate change, natural disasters, epidemics, and environmental degradation.
More than 30 documents and important declarations will be adopted at the 17th ASEAN Summit, namely a declaration on developing human resources, skills for economic recovery, sustainable development, the Hanoi declaration on improving social welfare and developing women and children, the ASEAN-China declaration on sustainable development and the ASEAN-Republic of Korea Strategic Partnership Action Program.
The 17th Summit will be attended by senior ASEAN leaders and also Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other senior leaders from partner countries.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, was established on 8 August 1967 in Bangkok, Thailand, with the signing of the ASEAN Declaration (Bangkok Declaration) by the Founding Fathers of ASEAN, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
Brunei Darussalam then joined on 8 January 1984, Vietnam on 28 July 1995, Lao PDR and Myanmar on 23 July 1997, and Cambodia on 30 April 1999, making up what is today the ten Member States of ASEAN.
http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2121134&Language=en
