Kuala Lumpur declaration: ASEAN Economic Community created

Najib also said based on the extensive discussions held during the 27th Asean Summit, it was clear that Asean had prepared itself well in ushering the region into its new phase, in terms of co-operation in the three pillars of the community.

Najib pointed out that the Asean Way had guided the regional grouping and would continue to be its compass as it sought to realise a politically cohesive, economically integrated, socially responsible, and a truly people-oriented, people-centred and rules-based Asean.

The ten members of ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, have signed a major agreement on regional integration.

The community declaration was signed by leaders of the 10- member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Kuala Lumpur, this year’s host of the group’s annual summit.

Defining his vision for the East Asia Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said that the world still looks to the region to address global challenges, and stressed that the summit is the key forum to shape the collective future.

Good governance advocates say the countries in this region need public prodding by powerful nations with leverage.

The ASEAN leaders also adopted the declaration on “ASEAN 2025, forging ahead together”.

“The ASEAN Economic Community is not the finished article”.

The ASEAN Member States, established the highly anticipated economic community which resembles the former European Economic Community.

In Malaysia, where Prime Minister Najib Razak is under investigation in a $700 million financial scandal, Obama kept his comments limited to a general call for making government “more accountable, more open, more transparent, to root out corruption”.

“The Asean Community building is an ongoing process that will evolve over the years”. “The notion that somehow we would be fearful of them – that our politics would somehow leave them to turn our sights away from their plight – is not representative of the best of who we are”, he said.

Speaking in Filipino, he recalled how, in earlier ASEAN Summits he attended.

Asean is comprised of Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Myanmar, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Li’s remarks came as China and some ASEAN countries are entangled in territory disputes on the South China Sea. The Malaysian PM underlined that the ASEAN economic community will “have to assure freer movements and removal of barriers that hinder growth and investment”.

The AEC was envisaged in 2002 – and a blueprint created in 2007 – to face competition from China and India for market share and investments.

The ASEAN said that it would be a community, where improvements in transport linkages and infrastructure help people and businesses move efficiently.

They said the people in the region would benefit from enhanced sustainable environmental governance and practices, equitable access to opportunities, ease of intra-ASEAN travel and doing business and mobility of skilled labour.