Indonesian President Joko Widodo (Source: AFP/VNA)Jakarta (VNA) – Indonesian President Joko Widodo will attend the ASEANSpecial Summit and the ASEAN+3 Special Summit on COVID-19 Response will be heldonline on April 14 under the chair of Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen XuanPhuc.
In a press releaseon April 12, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi stressed that ASEANcannot delay these two high-level meetings in the context that countries in theregion and around the world are combating the COVID-19, adding that the twostrategic summits will be held to seek consensus in pandemic response efforts.
She said that the summitsand their sidelines meetings will discuss common efforts in addressing andmitigating the impacts of the pandemic, ensuring supply chains of food,medicine and other necessities, as well as protecting ASEAN citizens and usingsome of the existing cooperation mechanisms.
The ASEAN SpecialSummit is expected to issue a Joint Declaration on the COVID-19 pandemic, which stresses commitments on to continuing effective response to the pandemic through a unified, multi-sectoral,multilateral approach related to the entire ASEAN Community. Meanwhile, theASEAN+3 Special Summit is also expected to issue a Joint Declaration, whichaffirms a common commitment to strengthening solidarity, cooperation and mutualsupport between ASEAN and the three partner countries of Japan, the Republic ofKorea and China in controlling, preventing and responding to the impacts of thepandemic on the socio-economic field.
Earlier, at the 25thASEAN Coordinating Council Meeting on COVID-19 via video conference, MinisterRetno proposed four issues which need to be discussed at the two specialsummits.
In relation toanti-COVID-19 efforts, she stressed the importance of implementing the outcomesof ASEAN and ASEAN+3 Health Ministers’ Meetings. Accordingly, she suggested theASEAN Special Summit outline mechanisms to prepare cross-border communityhealth response protocols.
She proposed the ASEAN+3Special Summit approve an agreement on supply chains and goods circulation onthe context of disease outbreaks.
ASEAN needs toprotect its citizens, including vulnerable groups, especially migrant workers,she emphasised, suggesting a protocol related to the movement of people betweenASEAN member states as a measure to recover from the pandemic.
The group could consider the use of the ASEAN Development Fund and the ASEAN+3 Cooperation Fundto establish its COVID-19 Response Fund, which can assist member countries toensure medical equipment, she added.
Founded in 1967, theAssociation of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) groups Brunei, Cambodia,Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand andVietnam.
With a combined GDPof 2.8 trillion USD, ASEAN has also been badly hit by COVID-19 as the situationin Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines remainsvolatile./.
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