ASEAN to adopt connectivity master plan

Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN) leaders are set to adopt an ambitious “master plan on connectivity" which would improve the transport, information communications and technology (ICT), and institutional connection of the ASEAN’s 10 member countries. At the 7th ASEAN Coordinating Council, which concluded in Hanoi on Thursday, foreign ministers of the member nations agreed to recommend that ASEAN leaders adopt the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity. Represented at the 17th ASEAN Summit are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (formerly Burma), the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. The master plan would enhance intraregional connectivity through physical roads, rails, and air and sea linkages among the member countries. Overland transport systems would connect adjacent territories such as Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam while improving physical links to archipelagic countries like the Philippines and Indonesia. The plan spearheads infrastructure and multi-modal transport projects such as the ASEAN Highway Network and the Singapore-Kunming Rail Link, which would address software-related issues within the existing framework of the ASEAN. These efforts are aimed at facilitating trade, investment, tourism, and development, as well as opening up underdeveloped and remote inland regions. The master plan aims to establish a single market economy by 2015 that would facilitate trade and investments among ASEAN members and their dialogue partners, including China, India, the United States, and the European Union. Within the same time frame, the scheme also plans to build a “people-oriented ASEAN community" that would focus on fostering a sense of shared cultural and historical linkages. The ASEAN foreign ministers also agreed to establish a rescue coordination center to handle search and rescue operations for their citizens who are affected by piracy in Somalia and other African seas. Almost 300 Filipino seamen have been kidnapped in Somalia and Nigeria since last year, with around 70 still held hostage by pirates. The ASEAN Declaration on Cooperation in Search and Rescue of Persons and Vessels in Distress at Sea creates direct communication channels and protocols to allow for speedier and more efficient rescue operations. The connectivity plan is a “response to the region’s needs for an improved physical, institutional, and people-to-people connection," the ASEAN said in a statement. — LRS/VS, GMANews.TV