President Thongloun Sisoulith (sixth left), Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone (seventh left) and leaders of other ASEAN member states gather for a group photo at the opening ceremony.

ASEAN Summits open in Vientiane to advance community building, discuss bloc expansion

Summits convening the leaders of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) opened in Vientiane on Wednesday to track the progress made in advancing community building on the path to prosperity, with the 10-member bloc set to expand its membership to 11.
Timor-Leste has applied to become a full member of the emerging bloc and hopes to be granted accession in the near future.
Welcoming ASEAN leaders at the Grand Hall of the National Convention Centre, Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone of Laos, the 2024 Chair of ASEAN, said ASEAN is pursuing the necessary procedures to enable Timor-Leste’s full membership in the grouping.
Taking place twice a year, Laos is hosting the 44th and 45th highest-policy-making gatherings and related summits back-to-back, with meetings set to end on Friday. Laos’ chairmanship of ASEAN takes the theme “ASEAN: Enhancing Connectivity and Resilience”.
Laos has been under the spotlight as observers assess how the country navigates the grouping on its path towards a more connected, resilient and prosperous community, during a time of regional and global turbulence.
The regional and international environments are undergoing rapid and complex changes, presenting challenges such as conflicts, armed confrontations, economic and financial hardships, and natural disasters.
To steer the region amid this ever-changing geopolitical and geoeconomic landscape, Lao President Thongloun Sisoulith in his Keynote Address at the opening ceremony stressed that the bloc continues to uphold its common cause and principle of ‘the ASEAN Way’, while upholding ASEAN centrality in the evolving regional architecture.
“ASEAN must continue to uphold its common cause of peace, stability and sustainable development, as well as its commitment to multilateralism based on equality and mutual benefit,” President Thongloun said.
“ASEAN should further strengthen cooperation grounded in the principles of ‘the ASEAN Way’ to promote the resilience of the ASEAN Community and to reinforce the unity, solidarity and centrality of ASEAN in its conduct of external relations.”
The Lao leader stressed that championing ‘the ASEAN Way’ principle has enabled the bloc to overcome challenges over the course of its evolution, leading to the establishment of the ASEAN Community in 2015, and continue to thrive.
Collectively, ASEAN has evolved to become third-largest economy in Asia and the fifth-largest globally. Projections indicate that ASEAN will become the world’s fourth-largest economy by 2030.
In addition to economic growth, the bloc with a population of almost 700 million will expand to encompass all countries in Southeast Asia once Timor-Leste joins.
PM Sonexay said the Summits present an excellent opportunity for leaders to review the progress of the ASEAN community-building process and the implementation of the ASEAN Community Vision 2025.
Discussions also charted the course for future cooperation, particularly under the ASEAN Community Vision 2045, with the aim of building a resilient, innovative, dynamic and people-centred ASEAN Community.
Led by PM Sonexay, the Summits adopted 56 documents across the three ASEAN Community pillars, which will serve as a foundation for further enhancing ASEAN’s connectivity and resilience.
Another topic that has attracted much attention under Laos’ chairmanship of the bloc is how the country engages with all stakeholders in an effort to address the Myanmar issue.
In this regard, the Summits discussed the implementation of the Five-Point Consensus of the ASEAN Leaders on Myanmar.
“The Meeting commended the Lao PDR as the ASEAN Chair for its role in continuing to uphold ASEAN’s commitment to implementing the Five-Point Consensus,” the Lao Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press release. 
The Summits were attended by ASEAN leaders, a non-political representative of Myanmar, the Secretary-General of ASEAN, and the Prime Minister of Timor-Leste.

By Times Reporters
 (Latest Update October 10, 2024)