Mr. Chairman,
Your Royal Highness,.
Dear Colleagues,
Ladies and Gentlemen, 

First of all, with my ASEAN colleagues, I would like to warmly welcome Foreign Ministers of our Dialogue Partners who are present here to attend this year's Post Ministerial Conference. This meeting is of significant importance as 2000 is the bridging year between two centuries, it opens a new prospect for mutually beneficial cooperative relations between ASEAN and its Dialogue Partners.

I fully share the views of my colleagues that last year, many positive developments were recorded in the relationship between ASEAN and each of its Dialogue Partners though their levels may differ. However, in order to quickly catch up with the trend of regionalisation and globalisation, we should attach importance to practical efficiency of the current relations on the basis of mutual benefit, and at the same time, assist the ASEAN countries in their efforts to recover from the recent economic-financial crisis and achieve further development. I, therefore, suggest that in the years to come, we should focus on more specific priorities. The results of cooperation in these priority areas will be seen as the yardstick for us to annually evaluate how much has been achieved in the cooperative relationship between ASEAN and its Dialogue Partners.

It was on the occasion of last year's. Meeting in Singapore that we exchanged views on measures to strengthen our cooperation in order to help ASEAN implement the important decisions of the 6th ASEAN Summit in Hanoi, including the Hanoi Plan of Action which consists of ten priority areas and 236 specific activities. In May 1999, before the Summit took place, the ASEAN Secretariat held the ASEAN Development and Cooperation Forum, in Jakarta to present the EPA to the international community. Later on, at the, ASEAN informal summit in Manila in November 1999, the ASEAN leaders reaffirmed the priority areas in the HPA as strengthening regional integration,

human resources development, poverty alleviation; narrowing the gap in development among Member Countries through cooperation in building development triangles, quadrilaterals, sub-regions and corridors etc. These areas arc not only the focus of ASEAN's cooperation but also the focus of cooperation between ASEAN and its Dialogue Partners, especially in the area of development cooperation in the next few years.  

So far, 200 projects have been formulated with the support of many Dialogue Partners. However, due to financial constraints, the IVA has been implemented at a slow pace, particularly the implementation of the above mentioned priority areas has not been as expected. It is our hope. that at this conference, the Dialogue Partners of ASEAN will work out concrete measures to accelerate the implementation. of the priority programmes and projects of mutual concern which were set out in the HPA. In order to help ASEAN to successfully implement the BFA, strengthen its economic integration and narrow the gap in development among its Member Countries so as to effectively engage in the process of regionalisation and globalisation, I suggest that the Dialogue Partners focus their attention in the following areas:

First; strengthening development cooperation, assisting ASEAN's efforts in accelerating economic integration, narrowing the gap in development among Member Countries and regions; assisting new members in their economic integration efforts, making contribution to ensuring the firm and equal development for the prosperity of each country and the whole region. These cooperation programmes could be implemented through official government programmes (i-e financial support, development projects, opening markets for ASEAN goods, etc.) or through investment by the private sector into the region, especially in inter-state programmes and projects such as the AIA, AICO, trans-Asia railway link etc.

Second; providing technical and financial support to assist development triangles, quadrilaterals and sub-regions, especially in the Mekong river delta and the less developed inter-state areas along the West-East corridor, help new and less developed Member Countries like Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam to improve their capacities in order to effectively participate in the regional integration process. The successful implementation of the priority projects in this sub-region will help alleviate poverty, reduce unemployment, improve the living conditions of people in poor areas as well as narrowing the gaps in development among Member Countries.

Third, promoting training or technical assistance programmes to develop human resources. This is a practical measure to help improve the management capacity as well as the ability to receive new technologies, which is crucial to the development of not only the new Member Countries but also of the Association, especially after the recent economic-financial crisis and in face of the challenges of globalisation. The early establishment of the Human Resources Development Fund for new Member Countries will help them effectively participate in ASEAN's cooperative activities.

Mr. Chairman,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The broader and deeper economic integration within ASEAN will pave the way for regional integration on a larger scale, thus, facilitating a more effective participation of the region in the global cooperation process. The implementation of the Hanoi Plan of Action, therefore, will not only benefit the ASEAN countries, but also contribute to the development of the mutually beneficial cooperation between ASEAN and countries outside the group, especially with ASEAN's Dialogue Partners. We wish to take this opportunity to thank the Dialogue Partners for their effective cooperation and assistance to our Association and we highly appreciate your continued support to successfully implement the Vision 2020 and the Hanoi Plan of Action, thus making contribution to building South east Asia into a region of peace, stability, sustainable and equal development,

Thank you for your attention.