ASEAN's 40th anniversary focuses more on people connecting: secretary-general

Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Ong Keng Yong Sunday said he wants the celebration of the grouping's 40th anniversary this year to focus more on enhancing people-to-people ties and community building.

The 10-member grouping celebrates its 40 years of founding this year, and the current important agenda for the grouping is economic integration and achieving the vision of an ASEAN economic community by 2015.

But for this year's celebrations, Ong said: "So far we have always seen ASEAN in the political, security and economic integrating dimensions. But in terms of art and culture, in terms of education, healthcare and public understanding of our own history, there are still plenty of areas to work on.

We want to take the 40th anniversary celebrations to highlight some of these areas that we have not given enough attention to in the past and hopefully we can bring more people to the ASEAN agenda," he was quoted by local television Channel NewsAsia as saying.

Singapore plans to host several celebrations of ASEAN's 40th birthday as it is Singapore's turn to chair ASEAN from August.

During its chairmanship, three important meetings are set to take place - the ASEAN-U.S. Summit in September, ASEAN's commemorative dialogue with the leaders of the European Union in November and the 10th anniversary of ASEAN's dialogue with China, Japan and South Korea.

Source: Xinhua