ASEAN meeting on economic integration kicks off in Myanmar

IANS | 19 Feb, 2014


The 25th meeting of ASEAN's High Level Task Force on Economic Integration, which aimed at promoting free trade among the member nations, kicked off in Yagon Tuesday.

The meeting was focussed on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) economic community post-2015 vision and strengthening of the ASEAN secretariat.

ASEAN member countries are currently working to transform the ASEAN into a single market and production base in which there will be free flow of goods, services, investments, skilled labour as well as capital.

Myanmar Deputy Minister of National Planning and Economic Development, San Lwin, Deputy Secretary General of ASEAN Lin Hong Hin and other senior officials from the member countries were present in the meeting, reported Xinhua.

"We discussed mainly on efforts to establish the ASEAN economic community by 2015 and to access in developing the community vision beyond 2015 that will chart our future work," San Lwin said.

"Our preparedness for ASEAN economic community has completed more than 86 percent of overall (work)," he said.

In January, the first Myanmar-hosted ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting was held in Bagan, an ancient city in Myanmar's Mandalay region.

The ASEAN Foreign Ministers Retreat will be the first in the series of ASEAN foreign ministers meetings under Myanmar's chairmanship in 2014 with the theme 'Moving forward in Unity to a Peaceful and Prosperous Community'.

ASEAN comprises 10 member countries -- Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

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