KUALA LUMPUR: Amid the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Asean chair Vietnam has managed to formulate a regional comprehensive economic recovery plan.
This was evident from the just-concluded 36th Asean Summit in Hanoi on June 26, where Vietnam demonstrated its mettle as a 25-year-old member of the regional bloc.
A senior Vietnam Foreign Ministry spokesman told the New Straits Times that his country had not only hosted a historic summit during the challenging times, but successfully lived up to the summit's theme of 'Cohesive and Responsive Asean'.
"The summit brought Asean members together towards achieving a progressive regional comprehensive economic recovery plan post-Covid-19.
"Vietnam shared its precious 25 years experiences as an Asean member in containing and combatting the pandemic with other members, representing a coordinated effort to ensure global and regional resilience and sustainability," said the spokesman.
He pointed out that Vietnam had made significant contributions to Asean since joining the fold on July 28, 1995, in terms of ensuring regional peace and stability, promoting intra-bloc cooperation and providing more opportunities for investment and economc growth.
The spokesman reminisced how Thailand's former Foreign Minister Kasem Kasemsemi had stated that Asean would not be complete as long as there remained a country in Southeast-Asia that was not yet a member.
"With Vietnam as our latest edition, Asean stands to become stronger and more dynamic," Kasem had remarked then.
And over the past decades, Vietnam had emerged as an active and responsible member, wielding enormous influence upon Asean's structure , while contributing to maintaining unity, peace and security in the region.
Meanwhile, Professor Tran Viet Thai of the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam said that its priorities included support for a sound regional security architecture.
"This can be achieved by helping Asean to be united, to maintain its centrality in facing so many packs of wolves, and in handling the pull-and-push of major powers in the region," said Tran, who is deputy director-general and director of the Centre for Regional and Foreign Policy Studies, at the academy's Institute for Foreign Policy and Strategic Studies.
He added that Vietnam, which occupied an increasingly important geo-political and geo-strategic location, was considered a bridge between the mainland and insular Southeast Asia.
"Vietnam has led efforts within Asean to the establishment of a unified structure of the bloc. Vietnam has assisted proactively in the accession of Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia into Asean.
"Looking back, the biggest contribution of Vietnam to Asean is that of bringing a divided Southeast Asia into a single entity," Tran said, adding that Vietnam kickstarted the process of Asean expanding from six nations to 10.
Tran said this augured well to avoid confrontations between socialist countries and capitalist maritime Asean nations.
Among Vietnam's milestones were in successfully organising the 6th Asean Summit in 1998, just three years after becoming a bloc member.
The 'Hanoi Action Programme' at the summit helped maintain cooperation and strengthen Asean's position during the challenging times of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis.
Vietnam also achieved successes as the Asean Standing Committee chairman in 2001 and as Asean president in 2010.
Both positions helped promote the enforcement culture and towards a great leap forward in establishing an Asean Communiity by 2015, thus, enhancing the bloc's international role and position.
"The Asean Community, for instance, serves as an important basis on which Asean countries can realise their determination to transform cultural diversity and differences within Asean into prosperity and opportunities for equal development in an environment of regional solidarity, self-reliance and harmony," he said.
Other achievements are Vietnam's constant support for the expansion of Asean's cooperation with the East Asia high-level cooperation mechanism with the participation of Russia and the United States, the Asean Defense Ministers' Meeting and for Asean to be represented at the G20 Summit.
Then there are the "Vision 2020 and implementation plans", "Asean Declaration 2", "Asean Charter", "Roadmap for the Asean Community Development (2009-2015)", "Initiative for Asean Integration" and the "Asean Master Plan and Connection".
Vietnam's former Deputy Prime Minister Vu Khoan said that his country had actively participated and played a dynamic role in promoting intra-bloc cooperation as well as Asean's cooperation with other partners.
"It could be said that Asean flourished in all aspects in the late 1990s and the early 2000s, with the establishment of the Asean Free Trade Area.
"The Asean Regional Forum was founded and the Southeast-Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zone Treaty was signed, followed by the 1992 Asean Declaration on the South China Sea and the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea 10 years later," said Vu.
Former Singapore ambassador to Vietnam Teck Hean commented that Vietnam was a dynamic country with economic growth.
"It is faster than many countries in the region. That development has helped Vietnam to strengthen its position in the regional and international schools.
"That also allows us to understand that the Asean Community cannot form and develop comprehensively without Vietnam," he had said.
On another note, a government official revealed that Vietnam had experienced a difficult period after launching the "Doi Moi" reform policy, on both domestic and foreign fronts to meet the ultimate interest of safeguarding peace for development.
"The country has been transitioning to a market economy with many successes achieved.
"Since the implementation of the Asean Free Trade Area, Vietnam's total import-export turnover with its Asean members increased approximately 7.7 times, from US$5.91 billion in 1996 to US$45.23 billion by November 2017. Vietnam's export value to Asean increased nearly 12.4 times, from US$1.6 billion to US$19.9 billion for the same period," he said.
By the end of June 2018, the spokesman added that the total trade value between Vietnam and Asean was US$28.1 billion, of which export turnover was US$12.2 billion and import turnover was US$15.9 billion.
In addition, he said by 2018 Vietnam's tariff elimination rate under the Asean Trade in Goods Agreement was 98 per cent.