Jakarta (VNA) – The ASEAN Secretariat, incollaboration with the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia(ERIA), have held the Multi-Stakeholder Policy Dialogue on Empowering ASEAN ForCircular Economy online.

The policy dialogue brought together stakeholders fromvarious sectors across the region to share ASEAN’s work on circular economy,assess existing practices in the region, and determine expectations.

In his opening remarks, Deputy Secretary-General of ASEANfor ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Satvinder Singh highlighted the criticalrole of circular economy in reducing carbon emission to help address climatechange, and the importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration to facilitateimplementation of circular economy in the region.

The dialogue underscored the importance of aligning circulareconomy measures with ASEAN’s environmental commitments and with the ASEANtaxonomy. Among the key challenges raised were shifting producer and consumerbehaviour towards circular practices, lack of markets for secondary goods,fragmented actions across the region, and limited technical capacity.

The outcomes of the policy dialogue will serve as referencefor the development of the Work Programme to Support the Implementation of theFramework for Circular Economy for the AEC. The Work Programme aims tofacilitate knowledge sharing, identify areas for possible collaborations, andprovide policy recommendations to integrating circular economy into ASEAN’scommunity-building efforts./.