PHNOM PENH: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation issued a press release on Friday of the “Briefing on Cambodia’s ASEAN Chairmanship in 2022,” which was held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday.

The press release describes that the briefing was led by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Deputy Prime Minister Prak Sokhonn, under the theme of “ASEAN A.C.T.: Addressing Challenges Together”, and was attended by the Minister of Commerce and National Representative for the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Council, Pan Sorasak, and the representative of the Minister of Youth and Sports (Hang Chuon Naron) and National Representative for the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) Council, Dr. Dy Khamboly.

Also in attendance were members of the diplomatic corps both in Cambodia and overseas, and members of the local media. A question and answer session was held at the end of the briefing.

The press release states:

“H.E. Deputy Prime Minister underscored that the theme “ASEAN A.C.T.: Addressing Challenges Together” endeavors to promote ASEAN’s spirit as a united family of Ten with a strong sense of “Togetherness” in jointly acting for results to achieve common goals, thereby contributing more constructively to the maintenance and enhancement of regional and global peace, stability, and sustainable development.

He also underlined four clusters of challenges with strategic implications far beyond ASEAN, namely the urgent need to achieve a speedy recovery from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the immense pressure deriving from geopolitical rivalries, existing traditional and non-traditional security challenges, and ASEAN internal and institutional challenges.

H.E. Deputy Prime Minister emphasized that ASEAN priorities in 2022 are defined to address these challenges. In this regard, he highlighted the key priorities under the ASEAN Political-Security Community Pillar for ASEAN 2022, which include maintaining and strengthening ASEAN Centrality for peace and prosperity, promoting regional contribution to global peace, and reenergizing and expanding partnerships with external partners. He further added that the immediate attention is to ease the situation in Myanmar based on the 5-Point Consensus agreed at the ASEAN Leaders’ meeting in April 2021 and the guiding principles of the ASEAN Charter. Cambodia also aspires to finalize the process of admitting Timor-Leste into the ASEAN family. He also announced plans to hold two major side events - the ASEAN Global Dialogue on Post-Covid-19 Comprehensive Recovery and the 2nd ASEAN Women Leaders’ Summit on entrepreneurship.

Some of the Economic and Socio-cultural priorities were highlighted at the briefing, such as ensuring effective implementation of COVID-19 response initiatives; launching Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnerships implementation and enhancing existing Free Trade Agreements; promoting digital economy, MSMEs and women empowerment; enhancing digital connectivity and cooperation in science and technology; and strengthening health, well-being and social protection of the ASEAN peoples.”

^{PHOTO: AKP}