The ASEAN-Korea Center will host an international conference to review the past and future of relations between the 10-member regional bloc and Korea at the Lotte Hotel, downtown Seoul, Wednesday.
Dignitaries and guest speakers including Le Luong Minh, secretary general of ASEAN and Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se will attend the conference titled "Ushering in a New Era of Collaboration and Co-prosperity: ASEAN Community and its Implications on ASEAN-Korea Relations and East Asia Cooperation.”
Chung Hae-moon, secretary-general of the center, will open the conference, which will be co-hosted by the Malaysia-based Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute.
Minh will deliver the keynote speech, followed by Myanmar’s Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin who will speak on the goals of ASEAN and its vision, with the ASEAN Economic Community soon to be launched in 2015. Minister Yun will give a special speech on ASEAN-Korea relations and their way forward.
The conference will have four main sessions including "25 Years of Partnership between ASEAN and Korea: Achievements, Prospects, and Challenges,” and "Launch of the ASEAN Community and Prospects of ASEAN-Korea Cooperation: What Lies Ahead?”
The list of guest speakers includes Kim Sung-han, professor of Korea University and former vice minister of foreign affairs; I Gede Ngurah Swajaya, ambassador at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia; Thitinan Pongsudhirak, professor of Chulalongkorn University; Josef Yap, former President of the Philippines Institute of Development Studies; and Bernardo Villegas, professor of the University of Asia and the Pacific among others.
The conference will assess milestones such as the establishment of the Dialogue Partnership in 1989 and entry into full force of the ASEAN-Korea FTA in 2009, as well as look at the prospects and significance of the launch of the ASEAN Economic Community next year.
