S. Korea, ASEAN agree to work for peace, prosperity, partnership

The ASEAN-South Korea Commemorative Summit in Busan came to an end on Tuesday. South Korea and the 10 ASEAN members adopted a joint vision statement that maps out blueprints for the three pillars, namely a people-centered community, an innovative community for co-prosperity, and a peaceful regional community. In the statement, leaders particularly stressed a need for free trade.

“Korea and ASEAN will build on free trade to move toward an innovative community of mutual prosperity,” President Moon said Tuesday. “We agreed to push to improve various systems to further expand freer people-to-people exchanges between South Korea and ASEAN, which has surpassed 11 million. These include streamlining visa issuance and promoting open skies agreements.”

The joint vision statement and the joint press statement also included measures to promote economic cooperation between South Korea and ASEAN members. Leaders reiterated their commitment “to support for the enhancement of trade and investment and the resistance to all forms of protectionism.” While welcoming the recent agreement in negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), they also decided to protect free trade based on the South Korea-ASEAN free trade agreement.


Sang-Jun Han alwaysj@donga.com