UNDERSTANDING ON ASEAN NEED TO BE PROMOTED - M'SIAN FOREIGN MINISTER

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 10 (Bernama) -- Understanding on Asean, especially among
school children, students and youth, should be promoted to instill and inculcate
a sense of Asean identity and feeling of "Asean-ness", Foreign Minister Anifah
Aman said Monday.

"I'd like to encourage that further enhancement of the level of awareness
and knowledge among the people, on Asean, be undertaken since even in the
Malaysian community, it is still very low," he said in his speech at the 43rd
Asean Day Dinner, here which was read by the his deputy, Senator A. Kohilan
Pillay.

In view of this, he urged the Asean-Malaysia National Secretariat to be
committed in carrying out more vigorously outreach programmes, both in urban and
rural areas, to educate the public at large on the significance and importance
of an Asean community.

Malaysia, as the founding member of Asean, was fully committed to Asean
Community building process and thus determined to ensure the relevance of Asean
in the years ahead, he said.

"We are confident that the Master Plan of Asean Connectivity will provide
the roadmap to facilitate connectivity in Asean to pave the way towards
accelerating the realisation of Asean Community by 2015," he said.

In his speech, he also said that Asean needed to enhance its economic
cooperation with its dialogue partners.

"I would look forward to seeing more active discussions undertaken
regularly to further deepen the economic cooperation beyond tariff
liberalisation to include non-tariff reduction, mutual recognition arrangement
on services, harmonisation of standards and conformance," he said.

He also said that private sectors should also actively play their role in
bridging markets of Asean to become a single market and production base by
connecting themselves to form a network or forging smart alliances for greater
productivity and competitiveness.

Also present at the dinner were members of parliament, as well as heads of
diplomatic missions in Kuala Lumpur, government officials, think-tanks,
non-governmental organisations, private sectors, such as Asean Business Advisory
Council and East Asia Business Council, academicians and media.

Earlier on Monday, Malaysia celebrated the 43rd anniversary of Asean through
a flag-hoisting ceremony at Wisma Putra (Foreign Ministry), an event held
annually to pay tribute to the wisdom and vision of the its establishment.

Asean member countries are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,
Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
--BERNAMA


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