AsiaNews Magazine Jan10-16,2014 ( Jan 1-7,2014) | Seite 20

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January 10-16, 2014

of food security (through
a new regional agriculture
network), economic shocks,
natural disasters, environment
and climate change.
> Developing “seamless
connectivity” in the region in the
areas of transport (including an
Asian Highway Network and a
Trans-Asia Railway Network),
energy (to be developed
through an Asian Pacific Energy
Forum) and information and
communications technology.
To avoid this Declaration being
just another document at just
another meeting, the ministers
agreed to a follow-up plan. This
includes setting up four expert
working groups (to propose
actions for each of the issues),
convening a second ministerial
meeting on regional cooperation
in 2015 and having an intergovernmental process open to all
Escap member states to receive

the expert group reports and to
prepare for the ministerial meeting.
The understanding is that
there will be a ministerial
conference every two years
on regional cooperation and
integration to review progress
on the actions in the four areas.
With last week’s Bangkok
conference, Escap is set to
get concrete action going
on Asian-Pacific regional
integration and cooperation.
Pursuing this cooperation
agenda is “an important step
toward realising a broad longterm vision of an economic
community of Asia and the
Pacific,” according to the
Bangkok Declaration.
Malaysia’s delegation was
led by Deputy International
Trade Minister Hamim Samuri,
who described the conference
as very useful, stressed the
need for “action with concrete

outcomes” and called on the
four expert groups to come
up with solid deliverables.
At the final session, the
conference chairperson, Samoa’s
Finance Minister Faumumina
Tiatia Liuga said: “For us to
be stronger, to be the Number
One region in the world, we
need to support each other
and help the weakest.”
It remains to be seen whether
this conference lives up to its
promise of sparking a process
for Asia-Pacific countries
to talk with one another
and generate region-wide
cooperation in concrete ways
in finance, connectivity and
addressing vulnerabilities.
If it does, then policy-making
in the region will become more
mature, which is what’s needed
in this complex, globalised
world with its many big
challenges in the near future. ¬