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ASEAN VISION 2020



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    SECOND ASEAN INFORMAL SUMMIT/ASEAN 30TH ANNIVERSARY COMMEMORATIVE
                SUMMIT KUALA LUMPUR, 14-16 DECEMBER 1997


ASEAN VISION 2020

We, the Heads of State/Government of the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations, gather today in Kuala Lumpur to reaffirm our
commitment to the aims and purposes of the Association as set
forth in the Bangkok Declaration of 8 August 1967, in particular
to promote regional cooperation in Southeast Asia in the spirit
of equality and partnership and thereby contribute towards peace,
progress and prosperity in the region.

We in ASEAN have created a community of Southeast Asian nations
at peace with one another and at peace with the world, rapidly
achieving prosperity for our peoples and steadily improving their
lives. Our rich diversity has provided the strength and
inspiration to us to help one another foster a strong sense of
community.

We are now a market of around 500 million people with a combined
gross domestic product of US$600 billion. We have achieved
considerable results in the economic field, such as high economic
growth, stability and significant poverty alleviation over the
past few years. Members have enjoyed substantial trade and
investment flows from significant liberalisation measures.

We resolve to build upon these achievements.

Now, as we approach the 21st century, thirty years after the
birth of ASEAN, we gather to chart a vision for ASEAN on the
basis of today's realities and prospects in the decades leading
to the Year 2020.

That vision is of ASEAN as a concert of Southeast Asian Nations,
outward looking, living in peace, stability and prosperity,
bonded together in partnership in dynamic development and in a
community of caring societies.

We envision the ASEAN region to be in 2020. In full reality, a
Zone of Peace Freedom and Neutrality, as envisaged in the Kuala
Lumpur Declaration of 1971.

ASEAN shell have by the year 2020, established a peaceful and
stable Southeast Asia where each nation is at peace with itself
and where the causes for conflict have been eliminated, though
abiding respect for justice and the rule of law and through the
strengthening of national and regional resilience.

We envision a Southeast Asia where territorial and other disputes
are resolved by peaceful means.

We envision the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia
functioning fully as a binding code of conduct for our
governments and peoples, to which other states with interests in
the region adhere.

We envision a Southeast Asia free from nuclear weapons, with all
the Nuclear Weapon States committed to the purpose of the
Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Treaty through their
adherence to its Protocol. We also envision our region free from
all other weapons of mass destruction.

We envision our rich human and natural resources contributing to
our development and shared prosperity.

We envision the ASEAN Regional Forum as an established means for
confidence-building and preventive diplomacy and for promoting
conflict-resolution.

We envision a Southeast Asia where our mountains, rivers and seas
no longer divide us but link us together in friendship,
cooperation and commerce.

We see ASEAN as an effective force for peace, justice and
moderation in the Asia-Pacific and in the world.

We resolve to chart a new direction towards the year 2020 called,
ASEAN 2020: Partnership in Dynamic Development which will forge
closer economic integration within ASEAN.

We reiterate our resolve to enhance ASEAN economic cooperation
through economic development strategic, which are in line with
the aspiration of our respective peoples, which put emphasis on
sustainable and equitable growth, and enhance national as well as
regional resilience.

We pledge to sustain ASEAN's high economic performance by
building upon the foundation of our existing cooperation efforts,
consolidating our achievements, expanding our collective efforts
and enhancing mutual assistance.

We commit ourselves to moving towards closer cohesion and
economic integration, narrowing the gap in the level of
development among Member Countries, ensuring that the
multilateral trading system remains fair and open, and achieving
global competitiveness.

We will create a stable, prosperous and highly competitive ASEAN
Economic Region in which there is a free flow of goods, services
and investments, a freer  flow of capital, equitable economic
development and reduced poverty and socio-economic disparities.

We resolve, inter-alia, to undertake the following:


** maintain regional macroeconomic and financial stability by
promoting closer consultations in macroeconomic and financial
policies.

** advance economic integration and cooperation by undertaking
the following general strategies: fully implement the ASEAN Free
Trade Area  and accelerate liberalization of trade in services:
realise the ASEAN investment Area by 2010 and free flow of
investments by 2020: intensify and expand sub-regional
cooperation in existing and new sub-regional growth areas:
further consolidate and expand extra-ASEAN regional linkages for
mutual benefit: cooperate to strengthen the multilateral trading
system: and reinforce the role of the business sector as the
engine of growth.

** promote a modern and competitive small and medium enterprises
(SME) sector in ASEAN which will contribute to the industrial
development and efficiency of the region.

** accelerate the free flow of professional and other services in
the region.

** promote financial sector liberalisation and closer cooperation
in money and capital market, tax, insurance and customs matters
as well as closer consultations in macroeconomic and financial
policies.

** accelerate the development of science and technology including
information technology by establishing a regional information
technology network and centres of excellence for dissemination of
and easy access to data and information.

** establish interconnecting arrangements in the field of energy
and utilities for electricity, natural gas and water within ASEAN
through the ASEAN Power Grid and a Trans-ASEAN Gas Pipeline and
Water Pipeline, and promote cooperation in energy efficiency and
conservation, as well as the development of new and renewable
energy resources.

** enhance food security and international competitiveness of
food, agricultural and forest products, to make ASEAN a leading
producer of these products, and promote the forestry sector as a
model in forest management, conservation and sustainable
development.

** meet the ever increasing demand for improved infrastructure
and communications by developing and integrated and harmonized
trans-ASEAN transportation network and harnessing technology
advances in telecommunication and information technology,
especially in linking the planned information highways/multimedia
corridors in ASEAN, promoting open sky policy, developing multi-
model transport, facilitating goods in transit and integrating
telecommunications networks through greater interconnectivity,
coordination of frequencies and mutual recognition of equipment-
type approval procedures.

** enhance human resource development in all sectors of the
economy through quality education, upgrading of skills and
capabilities and training.

** work towards a world-class standards and conformance system
that will provide a harmonised system to facilitate the free flow
of ASEAN trade while meeting health, safety and environmental
needs.

** use the ASEAN Foundation as one of the instruments to address
issues of unequal economic development, poverty and socio-
economic disparities.

** promote and ASEAN customs partnership for world class
standards and excellence in efficiency, professionalism and
service, and uniformity through harmonised procedures, to promote
trade and investment and to protect the health and well-being of
the ASEAN community.

** enhance intra-ASEAN trade and investment in the mineral sector
and to contribute towards a technologically competent ASEAN
through closer networking and sharing of information on mineral
and geosciences as well as to enhance cooperation and partnership
with dialogue partners to facilitate the development and transfer
of technology in the mineral sector, particularly in the
downstream research and the geosciences and to develop
appropriate mechanism for these.


A COMMUNITY OF CARING SOCIETIES

We envision the entire Southeast Asia to be, by 2020, an ASEAN
community conscious of its ties of history, aware of its cultural
heritage and bound by a common regional identity.

We see vibrant and open ASEAN societies consistent with their
respective national identities, where all people enjoy equitable
access to opportunities for total human development regardless of
gender, race, religion, language, or social and cultural
background.

We envision a cohesive and caring ASEAN where hunger,
malnutrition, deprivation and poverty are no longer basic
problems: where strong families as the basic units of society
tend to their members particularly the children, youth, women and
elderly and where the civil society is empowered and gives
special attention to the disadvantaged, disabled and marginalized
and where social justice and the rule of law reign.

We see well before 2020 a Southeast Asia free of illicit drugs,
free of their production processing, trafficking and use.

We envision a technologically competitive ASEAN competent in
strategic and enabling technologies with an adequate pool of
technologically qualified and trained manpower, and strong
networks of scientific and technological institutions and centers
of excellence.

We envision a clean and green ASEAN with fully established
mechanisms for sustainable development to ensure the protection
of the region's environment, the sustainability of its natural
resources, and the high quality of life of its peoples.

We envision the evolution in Southeast Asia of agreed rules of
behaviour and cooperative measures to deal with problems that can
be met only on a regional scale, including environmental
pollution and degradation, drug trafficking, trafficking in women
and children, and other transnational crimes.

We envision our nations being governed with the consent and
greater participation of the people with its focus on the welfare
and dignity of the human person and the good of the community.

We resolve to develop and strengthen ASEAN's institutions and
mechanisms to enable ASEAN to realize the vision and respond to
the challenges of the coming century. We also see the need for a
strengthened ASEAN Secretariat with an enhanced role to support
the realization of our vision.


AN OUTWARD-LOOKING ASEAN

We see and outward-looking ASEAN playing a pivotal role in the
international fora, and advancing ASEAN's common interests. We
envision ASEAN having an intensified relationship with its
Dialogue Partners and other regional organisations based on equal
partnership and mutual respect.


CONCLUSION

We pledge to our peoples our determination and commitment to
bringing this ASEAN Vision for the Year 2020 into reality.



Kuala Lumpur
December 15, 1997

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