ASEAN to continue promoting resilience and connectivity spirit

Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son made the above statement after Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh returned home from a series of regional summits in Laos.

Under the theme "ASEAN: Enhancing Connectivity and Resilience", the 44^th and 45^th ASEAN Summits and Related Summits have been the focal events of the region and drawn attention from the international community.

The connectivity and resilience spirit has left strong impressions at these summits and will continue to be strongly promoted in the future, said Bui.

Over the past nearly six decades, ASEAN has always proved to be resilient and overcome numerous challenges. In the face of current profound and complex developments, the spirit becomes more important than ever.

In the current context, resilience is reflected in how ASEAN can maintain its principled stance, promote its central role and assert its leading role in regional processes.

Resilience can also be ASEAN's ability to cope with emerging non-traditional security challenges, and to adapt to new development trends.

From that perspective, leaders of ASEAN and its partners adopted many important documents, including the ASEAN Vision Statement on the Indo-Pacific towards building a regional framework with ASEAN at its center, and other declarations on cooperation in supply chain connectivity, sustainable agriculture, climate change, and bio-diversity.

These summits also unlocked connectivity potential, including intra-connectivity and connectivity between ASEAN and its partners, and especially connectivity in new and potential areas.

The participating leaders affirmed that economic connectivity is the key pillar of the relations between ASEAN and its partners.

They agreed to accelerate people-to-people connectivity as this is the foundation for strengthening friendship, mutual understanding and cohesion within ASEAN and between ASEAN and its partners./.