国际英语新闻：ASEAN to move forward on a firm foundation, yet challenges remain

HANOI, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- The master plan and declarations passed at the just-concluded 17th ASEAN Summit and related summits created a firm foundation for the region to move forward, but challenges remain.

The three-day series of summits, with the theme of "Towards the ASEAN Community: from vision to action," gathered ten ASEAN members and several partners -- China, Japan, and the United States, among others.

ASEAN leaders at the meeting adopted the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity to enhance physical, institutional and people-to- people connectivity in ASEAN.

The plan is believed to accelerate ASEAN integration process and pave the way for expanding connectivity in the wider East Asia region.

Leaders of ASEAN also passed two important documents at the meeting. The first one is on human resources and skills development for economic recovery and sustainable growth, aiming to create new impetus for the regional growth.

The second one is on welfare and development for ASEAN women and children. It is expected to contribute to the improvement of the social safety net in ASEAN.

Tackling global challenges was another highlight of the meeting, as leaders held extensive discussions on ways and means to achieve economic recovery and sustainable development so as to effectively respond to global challenges.

According to Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, who is also ASEAN Chair 2010, ASEAN countries expressed strong determination at the meeting to intensify national efforts to enhance cooperation to address challenges like climate change, natural disasters and pandemic diseases.

In the meetings between ASEAN and partners, the discussion through ASEAN-led mechanisms such as ASEAN+1, ASEAN+3 and East Asia Summit were fruitful.

In the China-ASEAN Summit, China proposed to double bilateral trade to 500 billion U.S. dollars by 2015.

China also made several proposals on expanding agricultural cooperation with ASEAN, as most countries in the region have a large rural population and rich agricultural resources, making agriculture of fundamental importance to the economies.

In the ASEAN plus China, Japan and South Korea Summit, leaders vowed to make the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization more effective and improve its operation procedures.

ASEAN also held summits with other partners like Australia, India, New Zealand and Russia, and discussed economic and financial cooperation. "From a general perspective, ASEAN's external relations have been substantive and dynamic," said ASEAN Chair 2010 Nguyen Tan Dung Saturday.

ASEAN is scoring progress in the development and integration process. However, a lot more needs to be done to achieve the goal of building ASEAN Community by 2015.

Development gap remains a big challenge for the ten-member ASEAN, said analysts, especially between the six old members of ASEAN: Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, and four new members: Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Indonesia, the largest economy in ASEAN, is almost 100 times of that of Laos, the smallest economic entity in the region, figures from the ASEAN Secretariat showed.

ASEAN is urged to narrow the development gap through sub- regional cooperation and technical assistance to help the new members grow and become further integrated into the regional economy.

ASEAN is also faced with the challenge of capital shortage. The region needs a large amount of capital to implement its master plan on connectivity, involving the road, railway, bridge and other infrastructure development.

Besides, ASEAN members have differences in political system, social system, culture and orientation of defense policies, said analysts.