Remarks of H. E. Rodolfo C. Severino, Secretary-General
of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
at the launching of the ASEAN Countdown 2000 Clock
Kuala Lumpur, 3 July 1999

I consider it a great privilege to launch the ASEAN Countdown 2000 Clock with His Excellency Dato Abdul Kadir bin Haji Sheikh Fadzir, Minister of Culture Arts and Tourism of Malaysia.

This clock reminds us in ASEAN not only of the rapid approach of the new century and the new millennium. It also inspires us to recall how far ASEAN has gone on the road to Southeast Asian unity and development and to enduring peace in our region.

ASEAN now encompasses all ten countries of Southeast Asia. Its expansion has given renewed strength to ASEAN solidarity. ASEAN's economies are now being integrated beyond anything envisioned by its founders for the collection of economically backward states that were Southeast Asia in the 1960s. ASEAN is today capable of seeking cooperative solutions and taking joint measures for common problems - skills for our people, protection of the environment, the fight against drug-trafficking, and a wide variety of other transnational concerns.

The clock reminds us also that, as the millennium approaches, ASEAN has to move decisively forward in strengthening its solidarity, deepening its integration and intensifying its cooperation.

Close to the end of 1997, two years before the turn of the millennium, ASEAN's leaders set forth their vision - ASEAN Vision 2020 - of what ASEAN would become in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. They saw a cohesive concert of nations at peace with themselves and with the world. They saw a partnership of integrated economies developing dynamically and in a sustainable way. They saw a community of caring societies conscious of their Southeast Asian identity.

Last December, the leaders issued the Hanoi Plan of Action, a set of concrete and specific measures to carry out their vision. These measures call for close financial cooperation and greater transparency among ASEAN countries to make sure that the financial upheaval from which they are only now recovering does not happen again. They aim to ensure that the poor and other vulnerable sectors of society are not again the first to suffer from economic setbacks and the last to benefit from economic growth. They seek to promote the global competitiveness of ASEAN through closer cooperation in imparting to our people the skills necessary for the future. They point the way to ensuring that recovery and growth are sustainable by protecting the environment. They would make ASEAN better known among its people and in the world in order to gain for it the political and public support so essential for its purposes.

These are the tasks that face ASEAN in the transition to the new century and the new millennium. The ASEAN Countdown 2000 Clock serves to remind us to perform them with competence and devotion.

I thank Dato Kadir and Datin Suraya for sharing this moment with us, and I thank Laras Media, the Malaysian Travel Business and Galaxy Events Management for making it possible.