Thai PM to attend ASEAN-Australia Special Summit

BANGKOK, March 14 (TNA) - Thai Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-ocha to attend the ASEAN-Australian special summit in Sydney from March 17-18 to discuss strategic partnership. The summit will mark the first time Australia has hosted a summit with ASEAN to strengthen strategic partnership said Athisit Chainuwat, an assistant to the government spokesman. The summit will endorse the Sydney Declaration and the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for ASEAN-Australia cooperation. The MoU will be the framework for cooperation between ASEAN and Australia. The event will be the sixth ASEAN-Australia heads-of-government summit since 1977, but the first to be held in Australia. As a group, ASEAN is Australia’s third largest trading partner. This summit provides an important forum to discuss economic and security cooperation. The centrepiece of the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit will be the Leaders’ Summit and Retreat. There will also be two major side-events, which are a Business Summit ad a Counter-Terrorism Conference. (TNA)