Hun Sen wants ASEAN to play more active role on international stage

PHNOM PENH (Herald) - Prime Minister Hun Sen said Thursday that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations should play a more active role in international issues and announced that Cambodia would initiate and host a regional global dialogue towards he end of the year.

"I would like to see an ASEAN that is stronger and empowered to work more effectively at both the regional and global levels, with a stronger commitment by its members, and better resources, with bigger roles for the ASEAN Secretary-General and the Secretariat as well as continuity between chairmanships," he told a conference in Phnom Penh.

"ASEAN should be playing a more active role in the international issues and I will be stressing this message when I address the G20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico on behalf of ASEAN in June."

As the current chair of ASEAN, the prime minister said Cambodia would initiate and host an ASEAN Global Dialogue after the East Asia Summit at the end of the year. 

He said heads of multilateral financial and development organisations would be invited including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the United Nations and the World Trade Organization (WTO) to discuss how they can work more effectively with ASEAN and East Asia.

"It is time for a new dialogue to better reflect and respond to the centrality of the East Asian region, with ASEAN at its core, in the global economy," Hun Sen said.

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