On the theme of “One ASEAN at the heart of dynamic Asia”, the leaders will also attend separate ASEAN summits with China, Japan, the Republic of Korea and India (ASEAN + 1), the ASEAN plus China, Japan and the Republic of Korea summit (ASEAN + 3), the third East Asia summit (EAS – 3) and the ASEAN-EU summit to mark the 30 years of their partnership.

The event, the organisation’s most important annual activity, provides a chance for leaders from ASEAN member countries and their dialogue partners to meet, discuss and set out ways towards regional cooperation, as well as strengthening relations between ASEAN and its dialogue partners.

The ASEAN Business and Investment Summit (ASEAN-BIS) will also be held on November 18, 2007 by the ASEAN Business Advisory Council.

The Vietnamese delegation, led by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, will attend all these meetings. He will be accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem, Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang and many other senior leaders from the Government Office and the two ministries.

While attending these meetings, Vietnam aims to further develop its role and position, strengthen regional solidarity, shore up the building of a peaceful, stable and cooperative environment, accelerate the group’s inner integration towards an ASEAN Community by 2015, and increase the quality and efficiency of regional cooperation. It expects to make further contributions to expanding and deepening the cooperative ties between ASEAN and its partners, making full use of international assistance for the implementation of ASEAN objectives, as well as promoting regional cooperation in settling common issues, particularly emerging trans-national issues, in order to heighten ASEAN’s already important role in the regional cooperation process. 

On the sidelines of these summits, PM Dung and Deputy PM Khiem will have bilateral meetings with their counterparts from other ASEAN member countries and other partners to exchange views about bilateral relations and the theme of the summits.  

The 13 summit ASEAN and other relevant summits take place at a time as ASEAN has just celebrated its 40^th anniversary and is aimed at accelerating the process of inner integration in terms of cooperation and institution building as well as cooperating with non-ASEAN member countries to fulfil their goal of building an ASEAN Community and an ASEAN Charter.

During the past 40 years, particularly the past decade, ASEAN has emerged as a united and dynamic organisation, which is playing an increasingly important role in the cooperation process in the Asia-Pacific region.

Meeting in Singapore this time, the ASEAN leaders will consider and adopt the draft ASEAN Charter and discuss trans-national issues such as energy cooperation, environmental protection, climate change, sustainable development, and discuss measures to develop ASEAN’s external affairs.

Other relevant summits between ASEAN and its dialogue partners will review their cooperation in recent times, discuss ways to promote future cooperation, and exchange views on regional and international issues of mutual concern.

It is worth mentioning that 2007 marks 10 years of the ASEAN+3 cooperation mechanism and 40 years of the ASEAN-EU partnership.