On Friday, the ASEAN Joint Consultative Meeting (JCM) took place in Da Nang. The event was chaired by Deputy Minister of the Vietnamese Foreign Affairs cum Head of the ASEAN Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM) in Viet Nam Nguyen Quoc Dung.

Delegates at the meeting

At the event, Deputy Minister Dung introduced the agenda for the upcoming 36^th ASEAN Summit to the participants. Included were ASEAN leaders’ special meeting on gender equality and women’s empowerment, and the improvement of the quality of dialogues among leaders of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly.

He also presented the roadmap to implement Viet Nam’s initiatives and its expected outcomes in 2020.

Mr Dung highlighted the significance of enhancing coordination among pillars of the ASEAN Community, and the overall approach in implementing ASEAN’s commitments and cooperation plans to build the ASEAN Community.

Participating delegates voiced their support for initiatives proposed by Viet Nam in 2020. Included were the mid-term review of the realisation of the ASEAN Community Vision 2025, the kick-off of discussions on the post-2025 ASEAN Community Vision, the review of the implementation of the ASEAN Charter, the organisation of an expanded Mekong dialogue and activities regarding women’s empowerment.

In addition, they discussed measures to foster inter-sectoral cooperation between ASEAN member nations in such aspects as combating Covid-19, optimising opportunities generated by the Fourth Industrial Revolution, promoting reciprocity between the ASEAN Vision 2025 and the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030.

The delegates also reached consensus on the proposed working programme, agenda and documents of the 36^th ASEAN Summit, and pledged to join forces with Viet Nam to successfully organise the summit.

By LAM PHUONG– Translated by MAI DUNG