Opinion

Strengthened co-op helps ASEAN community building

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-10-29 08:39

BANGKOK - Strengthened cooperation among East Asian countries will help build ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by the year 2015, a renowned Thai economist said ahead of the regional group's annual meeting with dialogue partners in Vietnam.

Related readings:  Premier Wen leaves for East Asian leaders' meetings  Wen attends ASEAN, East Asia meetings  Thai PM leaves for ASEAN summit in Vietnam  ASEAN, EAS to help deepen understanding of China's role

Sompop Manarungsan, president of Panyapiwat Institute of Technology, a college focus on business, said in an interview with Xinhua that East Asian countries may play much more crucial role in strengthening the position of ASEAN and even all the regional countries.

"If China, Japan and South Korea play a more cooperated role within ASEAN and create a larger and stronger regional supply chain, that may help the AEC be implemented within the next five years."

Meanwhile, he noted that ASEAN members have different social and political systems, but they can find common ground to cooperate.

"We should strengthen our cooperation especially to trade and invest together," he said. "At the same time, we should find a way to promote regional currency to be the medium of our trade instead of depending on the key currency, which means the US dollar, that will link our financial systems."

The 17th ASEAN Summit and related meetings which start on Thursday in Hanoi, capital of Vietnam, will focus on regional connectivity, regional architecture, economic recovery and sustainable development.

Sompop, who is also a researcher on China's economy, said that China could use its excess fund to invest in infrastructure construction in the region. "As a result, the transition, transportation, communication costs are going to be declined considerably."

Last week, Itti Ditbanjong, director-general of the Department of ASEAN Affairs at Thailand's foreign ministry, told a press briefing that the upcoming ASEAN Summit would adopt the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity which aims at enhancing intra-regional connectivity within the group in three aspects, as improvement of transportation linkage, rules and regulations for cross-border communication and the promotion of people-to-people contact.

Tong Xiaoling, China's ambassador to ASEAN, recently told Xinhua that China attaches great importance to the plan and would like to support the projects under the plan to realize the connectivity of transportation, telecommunications, energy and infrastructure among regional countries.

On security aspect, he said though ASEAN's GDP takes only a small portion of the world, the voice of ASEAN can mean something if it cooperates well with regional partners.

"We collaborate and move together in the same direction, so we can prevent or reduce the role of the outsider who is trying to use East Asia and ASEAN as a platform to implement its policy, particularly the security policy," he suggested.