Hanoi (VNA) – The 33rd ASEAN Summit, slated for November 13-15 inSingapore, will focus on strengthening intra-bloc cooperation and connections,building a resilient and innovative ASEAN Community and sketching out ASEANorientations for following years.

Prime Minister NguyenXuan Phuc will lead a high-ranking delegation to Singapore to attend the event atthe invitation of the host country’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Major events of thesummit include the 33rd ASEAN Summit Meeting, the ASEAN Plus 3(China, Japan, the Republic of Korea) Summit, the East Asia Summit, and sevenASEAN Plus 1 Summits with China, the Republic of Korea, Japan, the US, India,Australia and Russia.

The second high-levelmeeting will also be held for countries engaging in the Regional ComprehensiveEconomic Partnership (RCEP).

At the summits withpartners, participants will discuss measures to foster collaboration amongparties, including enhancing partnership in economy, trade, investment,infrastructure development, responding to changes in global economy, adaptingto the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and settling global challenges such asenvironmental pollution and climate change.

The leaders will alsodiscuss regional and international issues of mutual concern.

The ASEAN Community isbased on three key pillars - ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC), ASEANEconomic Community (AEC), and ASEAN Social-Cultural Community (ASCC). The grouping’sexternal relations as well as the target of narrowing down development gapamong members have been integrated in the contents of all pillars.

The APSC aims to sharecommon norms of conduct in the region, upholding intra-bloc solidarity and unity,promoting the value of tools and mechanisms to ensure regional security, andpromoting common voice in regional and global challenges.

Through existingregional cooperation mechanisms, the APSC contributes to strengthenpartnership, dialogue and trust building, reinforcing regional peace, securityand stability.

Regarding the AEC, theASEAN has continued efforts to supervise and evaluate the implementation of theAEC and promote measures for trade facilitation, including increasing intra-bloctrade and investment, developing high quality human resources as well as micro,small- and medium-sized enterprises.

At the same time, theASEAN has fostered connections with partner economies through the adjustmentand upgrading of existing free trade agreements and negotiating for new ones,while narrowing developing gaps among member countries.

The ASEAN IntegrationInitiative has been sped up, with 13 out of the 26 actions being implementedthrough 26 projects to enhance capacity and give technical support worth 9.9million USD in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

For the ASCC, theASEAN has strengthened online supervision of the implementation of the ASCCBlueprint to prepare for the 2025 report. An ASCC special envoy will be sent toASEAN mission in Jakarta in June 2020 to foster collaboration with otherpillars.

Major cooperation objectivesof the ASCC is to deal with issues related to the living conditions of peoplesuch as natural disaster and climate change response and supporting vulnerablegroups. It also helps popularise the ASEAN Community among the people,enterprises and partners.

The ASEAN is to finishthe third year of implementing the ASEAN Community Vision 2025 and blueprintsfor building the three pillars with positive results.

As many as 239 out ofthe 290 actions in political-security cooperation and 80 out of the 118priorities in economic affiliations have been conducted, along with all the commitmentsin socio-cultural collaboration. Economic growth of the association is estimatedto reach 5.1 percent in 2018 and 5.2 percent in 2019.

In 2018, uponSingapore’s proposal, the ASEAN has realized its priority in building a resilientand innovation ASEAN through various activities, including the issuance of the ASEANLeaders’ Vision for a Resilient and Innovative ASEAN.

ASEAN externalrelations have been promoted, focusing on human resources training, digitaleconomy, infrastructure development, anti-corruption, and cyber security.

So far, 91 countrieshave sent their ambassadors to the ASEAN, while 53 committees of the ASEAN havebeen set up in third countries.

ASEAN has pledged tocontinue promoting its central role in regional cooperation mechanisms that ithas launched.-VNA