"As the ASEAN chairman this year, Indonesia has three priorities and the first is to ensure significant progress in efforts to establish an ASEAN Community ny 2015," Yudhoyono said in his address at the opening of an ASEAN-European Union Business Summit at the Jakarta Convention Center here on Thursday.
The president was of the opinion the ASEAN Community was an effort to expand and strengthen the role of ASEAN economies, and Indonesian vision for ASEAN was also to narrow development gaps among ASEAN countries.
"We need to have a more just and inclusive ASEAN," President Yudhoyono said, adding that it could be achieved through infrastructure development and ASEAN connectivity.
The second priority, according to the president, was to strengthen ASEAN cohesiveness to realize wider East Asian architecture to overcome the challenges of food and energy resilience as well as climate change.
While the third priority was to make sure that regional agreements could contribute to a global agreement.
"The improvement of ASEAN involvement in international forum should be intended not only to encourage economic and financial growth but also to animate regional investment and resilience against crisis in the future," President Yudhoyono said.
The ASEAN leaders will hold a two-day summit in Jakarta from May 7-8, 2011 to discuss various international and regional issues of common interest.
ASEAN is made up of ten countries namely Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Laos, Thailand, Singapore, and Vietnam.
Nine of ASEAN heads of state have confirmed their presence at the summit except Singapore because the gathering coincide with general election in the country. (*)
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Editor: Jafar M Sidik
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
