Mr. Sihasak Phuangketkeow, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, attended the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Retreat (AMM Retreat), held on 17 January 2014  in Bagan, Myanmar. The Retreat was the first meeting under Myanmar’s ASEAN Chairmanship to set out the direction and priorities of ASEAN in 2014.

The ASEAN Foreign Ministers discussed the progress made so far on ASEAN Community building. As of now, 80% of the ASEAN Community Blueprints have been implemented. The task now is to speed up the remaining action lines. Focus should be placed on promoting common norms and values such as good governance, transparency and anti-corruption, enhancing regional connectivity, particularly institutional and people aspects, improving disaster management capacity, particularly on relief and recovery phases, and narrowing the development gaps.

The Ministers also discussed the development of the ASEAN Community’s Vision. They viewed that the Vision should include development goals which are measurable, such as poverty eradication, public health and education, and should be consistent with the UN’s post-2015 development agenda. It should also address the coherence in the work of all ASEAN organs and bodies and seek ways to enhance efficiency of ASEAN’s working methods.
 
On ASEAN’s external relations, the Ministers agreed that ASEAN needs to be more proactive in dealing with our external partners so as to intensify their support in our community building efforts and to maintain ASEAN centrality in the regional architecture. In this regard, ASEAN needs to maintain our unity and speak with one voice on major regional and international issues such as South the China Sea and UN’s Post-2015 Development Agenda. Furthermore, the Ministers agreed that ASEAN should study and consider the several proposals on building rules and norms on inter-State relations in this region in an integrated manner.

The ASEAN Foreign Ministers also discussed the South China Sea issue. They expressed their concerns on the latest development and agreed that ASEAN needs to keep the momentum in our dialogue with China in order to push forward the negotiation on the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea (CoC) to prevent the situation on the ground from escalating. Thailand, as the country coordinator of the ASEAN-China Dialogue Relations, will host the 20th ASEAN-China Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM) in April 2014, where ASEAN and China will further discuss the COC process.