As the ASEAN Chair for 2022, Cambodia is planning to organise two major side events, namely the 2nd ASEAN Global Dialogue on Post-Covid 19 Recovery and the 2nd ASEAN Women Leaders’ Summit.
The plan was shared by Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation H.E. Prak Sokhonn at the opening ceremony of the Workshop on “Cambodia’s Contributions to ASEAN since Assuming Membership in 1999” held here this morning.
According to the Cambodian top diplomat, the 2nd ASEAN Global Dialogue on Post-Covid 19 Recovery will focus on four topics, (1) Promoting ASEAN as a Post-Pandemic Climate-Resilient Community, (2) Universal Health Coverage, (3) MSMEs’ Digitalisation for Sustainable and Inclusive Growth, and (4) Investing in Human Capital Development for inclusive and sustainable growth.
For the 2nd ASEAN Women Leaders’ Summit, under the theme “Building a More Sustainable, Inclusive and Resilient Future: Unlocking Women’s Entrepreneurship in ASEAN”, he added, it is aimed to promote women’s roles in ASEAN’s post-COVID-19 economic recovery efforts.
“With seven more months for us to steer ASEAN during this extraordinary time, Cambodia will continue to draw on the ASEAN’s spirit of “Togetherness” to consolidate our efforts, internally within ASEAN as well as with ASEAN Partners, to achieve our goals of building a resilient ASEAN Community, in line with the ASEAN Community Vision 2025,” he said.
As for this year’s chairmanship, he pointed out, braving the risk of COVID-19, Cambodia successfully convened several ASEAN-related meetings and activities either physically or in a hybrid format, under all the three ASEAN Community pillars. Among them is the AMM Retreat held last February in Phnom Penh to discuss plans, directions and approaches to further promote ASEAN community building.
In the context of an increasing rivalries between great powers and the crisis in Myanmar, Cambodian chairmanship was kick-started with Samdech Prime Minister’s visit to Myanmar on Jan. 7-8 to pave the way for the implementation of the Five-Point Consensus (5PC) reached earlier by the ASEAN Leaders, H.E. Prak Sokhonn recalled, underlining that this ice-breaking mission paved the way for his first visit to Myanmar as the Special Envoy of the ASEAN Chair in March and the subsequent convening of the Consultative Meeting on ASEAN Humanitarian Assistance to Myanmar earlier this month.
A few weeks ago, he said, as the ASEAN Chair, Samdech Techo Prime Minister co-chaired with President Joe Biden the ASEAN-U.S. Special Summit in Washington D.C. This is a milestone event to mark 45 years of ASEAN-U.S. Dialogue Relations and to chart the future direction of ASEAN-U.S. partnership, which includes the upgrade of the relations into a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership at the 10th ASEAN-U.S. Summit to be held in November 2022 on the margin of the upcoming ASEAN Summit and Related Summits in Cambodia.
“Cambodia took on another priority task with the successful co-chairing with Malaysia of the first High-level Task Force Meeting to formulate ASEAN Community Post-2025 Vision. Last week, we successfully hosted the ASEAN-China COC negotiations in Siem Reap, in physical format for the first time since the outbreak of COVID-19. ASEAN and China have reaffirmed their commitment to working toward the early conclusion of the COC that is effective and substantive and in accordance with international laws, including the 1982 UNCLOS,” H.E. Prak Sokhonn said.
