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| On August 21-22, the ASEAN Senior Officials' Meeting (SOM), ASEAN+3 Senior Officials' Meeting, and East Asia Summit (EAS) meeting were held in the heritage city of Luang Prabang, Laos, under the chairmanship of Laos, the ASEAN Chair for 2024. |
The Vietnamese delegation, led by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Do Hung Viet, Head of Vietnam's ASEAN SOM, attended the meetings.
The focus of these meetings was to discuss preparations for the 44th and 45th ASEAN Summits and related summits, which will take place from October 8-11 in Vientiane, Laos.
According to the plan, the series of high-level conferences will consist of approximately 20 events, held at the Lao National Convention Center, with the participation of ASEAN leaders and partners, as well as many guests representing international and regional organizations.
This is the most important series of ASEAN Summits of the year, providing an opportunity for ASEAN leaders and partners to exchange views and make strategic decisions to strengthen the Community-building process, promote relations between ASEAN and its partners, and discuss many issues of regional and global concern.
Approximately 80 documents are expected to be adopted or noted by the Leaders. The participating countries highly appreciated Laos's preparation and coordination efforts, which involved a significant amount of work in both organization and content. They affirmed their commitment to working closely with the Chairing country to ensure the conferences are successful, effective, and substantive.
At the ASEAN Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) , the SOM leaders also spent time discussing intra-bloc cooperation, welcoming many practical initiatives from Laos such as the 3rd ASEAN Women Leaders Summit with the theme "Strengthening the Care Economy and Resilience Towards the ASEAN Community after 2025", and the ASEAN Forum on the Indo- Pacific with the theme "Towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2030", contributing to building a resilient, cohesive, and people-centered ASEAN Community.
Reviewing the progress of the Timor-Leste Roadmap to full ASEAN membership, ASEAN countries agreed on the need to continue supporting Timor-Leste in enhancing its capacity to meet the criteria set out in the Roadmap, particularly in participating in ASEAN legal instruments. The countries also actively exchanged numerous proposals to further facilitate Timor-Leste's preparation for ASEAN accession.
ASEAN countries have essentially completed the handover and acceptance of the coordinating role in relations between ASEAN and its Dialogue Partners for the next three years (August 2024 - July 2027); they have also preliminarily announced several priorities, especially exploring new cooperation potential in areas such as digital transformation, smart agriculture , artificial intelligence, connectivity and supply chain resilience, and combating cybercrime…
At the ASEAN+3 SOM and EA S meetings , the countries exchanged views on the implementation of the outcomes of the Foreign Ministers' Meetings held in July, agreeing on the need to further enhance the strengths of these mechanisms, contributing to peace, security, stability, and sustainable development in the region.
The ASEAN+3 countries agreed to effectively implement the ASEAN+3 Work Programme (2023-2027), focusing on enhancing supply chain resilience and regional connectivity, facilitating trade and investment, ensuring financial stability, effectively utilizing free trade agreements between ASEAN and China, Japan, and South Korea, and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), as well as existing cooperation frameworks such as the Multilateralization of the Chiangmai Initiative, the Disaster Risk Reduction Financing Solution, and the ASEAN+3 Emergency Rice Reserve Fund…
The EAS countries emphasized the value of dialogue, consultation, and cooperation, enhancing resilience to changes, and agreed to coordinate the effective implementation of the EAS Action Plan (2024-2028) across all 16 areas, including sustainable development, maritime cooperation, connectivity, and food security.
Partners affirmed their support for ASEAN's central role, working together with ASEAN to build an open, transparent, inclusive, and rules-based regional architecture, and supporting the implementation of cooperation areas within the framework of the ASEAN Vision on the Indo-Pacific.
Countries expressed concern about the complex developments in several hotspots in the region and around the world, such as the South China Sea, Myanmar, the Korean Peninsula, the Middle East, and the conflict in Ukraine, emphasizing adherence to international law, the United Nations Charter, and the peaceful resolution of disputes in accordance with international law and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
At the meetings, Deputy Minister Do Hung Viet actively worked with other countries to review preparations for the upcoming ASEAN Summits, affirming Vietnam's support and assistance to Laos in fulfilling this important task, contributing to the overall success of the 2024 ASEAN Chairmanship.
Deputy Minister Do Hung Viet and other countries discussed and shared many ideas on the process of building the ASEAN Community and relations between ASEAN and its partners, especially measures and initiatives to realize the theme of promoting connectivity and resilience in the region. The Deputy Minister affirmed Vietnam's support for Timor-Leste becoming a full member of ASEAN and expressed readiness to share Vietnam's experience in preparing to join ASEAN since the early 1990s. The Deputy Minister emphasized that ASEAN needs to support, facilitate, and further simplify the procedures for Timor-Leste's accession to ASEAN.
Welcoming efforts to deepen ASEAN+3 and EAS cooperation, Deputy Minister Do Hung Viet requested partners to continue supporting ASEAN in building the Community, cooperating substantively to promote regional connectivity and resilience, and effectively leveraging new trends in innovation, digital economy, digital transformation, and green transformation…
Discussing the international and regional situation, the Deputy Minister requested partners to support ASEAN's common principled stance, including on the South China Sea issue, particularly emphasizing the importance of international law and UNCLOS 1982 in the peaceful resolution of disputes, affirming Vietnam's desire to work with other countries to maintain and promote peace, security, stability, cooperation, and development in the region.
On this occasion, Deputy Minister Do Hung Viet met with partners from ASEAN, Japan, Australia, and the United States to exchange views on issues of mutual interest in bilateral cooperation as well as to enhance coordination in multilateral forums.
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