Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen:

We are here to celebrate the launching ASEAN's countdown clock marking the approach of the new millennium, and I thank you all for sharing this event with us.

2000 is, in a sense, just another year. But, like significant anniversaries in a person's life, like certain birthdays, a jubilee, a golden wedding anniversary, it is benchmark for one's progress in life, an occasion to take stock of the past, a milestone to anticipate. More importantly, it is a time for re-dedicating oneself to one's fundamental goals in life, for the renewal of one's core values, for invigorating one's determination to move ahead. It is in this spirit that we in ASEAN look forward to the year 2000, to the turn of the century, to the beginning of the third millennium.

We in ASEAN look at the approach of this new chapter in mankind's history as an occasion to recall the purposes for which ASEAN was founded, to re-dedicate ourselves to those fundamental purposes, and to chart the course and direction of our association in this next phase in its life.

As we look back through the thirty years and more since ASEAN's creation in 1967, we can see, with much satisfaction, that ASEAN has kept the peace among its members and brought stability to the region. We can see that ASEAN has made much progress in integrating its markets and its economies. ASEAN is about to achieve its founders' vision of all of Southeast Asia in one ASEAN family. Not least, we can see that ASEAN's governments and ASEAN's peoples have acquired the habit of cooperating and working together and forming partnerships with one another in an ever-widening range of human concerns for the benefit of all.

The approach of the new century and of the new millennium is a time to move more vigorously forward in building on these achievements.

Indeed, last December, our leaders looked beyond the turn of the century and the turn of the millennium and projected their vision of ASEAN for the first two decades of the new century, their ASEAN Vision 2020.

In December, at the height of the global financial crisis that had hit the region with full force and amid the haze that covered much of the region, ASEAN's leaders dared to proclaim a vision of optimism and hope. In the words of the ASEAN Vision 2020 Statement, "That vision is of ASEAN as a concert of Southeast Asian nations, outward looking, living in peace, stability and prosperity, bonded together in partnership in dynamic development and in a community of caring societies."

Our leaders' optimism was not misplaced even in those difficult times. For what they -- what we -- have made of ASEAN and built upon ASEAN will enable us to emerge from our difficulties stronger, more stable, more cohesive, more united as a region and as an association.

We are undertaking the necessary reforms in our own economies and our own societies. We are working together to deal with the new and unfamiliar problems arising from the untrammeled and rapid movement of capital around the world. We are helping one another cushion the impact of the financial crisis on the poor and weaker members of our societies.

Together and in cooperation with others, we have put in place measures for combating the fires that have polluted the atmosphere of our region and inflicted grave damage on our people and our economies. We have taken steps to ensure that the disaster does not happen again in the same magnitude and scope.

As we approach the year 2000, there is much to hope for. Already, ASEAN is hard at work on concrete measures for the years straddling the turn of the century and of the millennium to bring to reality the vision of our leaders.

The ASEAN countdown clock will, in this sense, be a constant reminder for us to keep moving toward the achievement of that vision.

I wish to invite you all to join us for the launching of the ASEAN countdown clock this evening at seven o'clock at the Taman Anggrek Mall. The launching will take place amidst an ASEAN painting and photo exhibit and a colorful show of ASEAN dances. In the past month, the month of ASEAN's 31st anniversary, many cultural events have led up to the launching of the countdown clock, including a rice competition and cooking demonstrations, a walkathon, and a children's costumes competition.

On ASEAN's behalf, I thank Taman Anggrek Mall for providing a great place for our clock in Jakarta. I thank Casio Pte Ltd of Japan for sponsoring the clocks here in the ASEAN Secretariat, in Taman Anggrek Mall and in the eight other ASEAN countries. I thank all the other sponsors of this project. And I thank Pesona Laras Mediatama for making it all possible.