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It's been 51 years since the founding fathers of Asean signed the historic Bangkok Declaration.
While Asean as a pact has taken important milestones, including remarkable progress ranging from regional issues such as food security to the creation of the Asean Economic Community (EAC) in 2015, however, we must admit that we are always late in terms of regional economic integration. compared to the tastes of the European Union, no matter the Brexit.
Asean has so much to offer to the world and the successful and colorful representation of the fusion of cultures of our region at the 1299 Asian Cultural Week, held at the China International Exhibition Center in Beijing, has stood out in the eyes of the world.
Second installment of Asian Cultural Week, themed Fusion of cultures, celebration of diversity, was the highlight of the 13th International Exhibition of Culture and Creative Industries in Beijing. He has received much praise and recognition from the Chinese government as well as other exhibitors from around the world.
Our colorful and spicy story testifies that diversity should never be an excuse for division, but a cause for celebration. Many visitors who invaded our pavilion were pleasantly surprised to find that while the proposed green and spicy papaya salad came from the Lao ethnic group, it was also consumed throughout Southeast Asia. . He is known in Cambodia as bok the hong, in Laos as Tam Som or tam maak hoong, in Thailand as som towerand in Vietnam as goi du. Asean's connection through our roots and our food was visible throughout the world, and demonstrates that as ASEAN works together to achieve a common goal, we can realize our full potential.
Asean offers opportunities in the form of a huge $ 2.6 billion market and more than 622 million people. In 2014, AEC was collectively the third largest economy in Asia and the seventh largest in the world. By the year 2030, we are destined to become the world's fourth largest economy.
After producing the theme song of Asian Cultural Week We are theIn order to strengthen the strategic cooperation between our peoples in the Asean region and China, the success of the 2018 Asean Cultural Week shows that the strategic cooperation of the nations of Asean and China, even rest of the world, is achievable and that the economic integration of our region could soon become a reality if we remain engaged.
As we build on the success of the 2018 Asean Cultural Week, we must also be realistic and strive to eliminate any differences that may hinder regional economic integration. Some say that a common regional time zone or currency could be hard to reach in Asean, but let's be objective and work in the big picture. The goal of a common time zone or regional currency is to connect our peoples in a transparent way.
More fundamentally, connectivity is the key to our regional economic integration. Looking at Asian Cultural Week, we can say that our celebration of diversity was due to our desire to merge our cultures; in short, connecting.
Today, we are proud to be in a world without borders, but we still have to wait weeks for a package to arrive from one of our regional neighbors. To achieve our integration goals, we can not deny that connectivity is an essential catalyst for our peoples. Achieve connectivity and we achieve integration.
JASMINE KHO
MULU Group
Organizer of the Asian Cultural Week
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