Keynote Speech by
H.E. Dr. Surakiart Sathirathai
Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand
at the Fourth Asia Cooperation Dialogue Ministerial Meeting
Islamabad, Islamic Republic of Pakistan,
6 April
2005
Your
Excellency Shaukat Aziz,
Prime
Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan,
Your
Excellency Wen Jiabao,
Premier of the People’s Republic of China,
Your
Excellency Kurshid Kasuri, Minister of Foreign Affairs of
Pakistan,
Excellencies,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Please allow me to express my sincere appreciation
to His Excellency the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign
Affairs of the
Islamic Republic of
Pakistan for the invitation and the distinct honour
of joining the past and present hosts of the ACD Ministerial
Meetings in addressing the Inaugural Session of the 4th
Asia Cooperation Dialogue Ministerial Conference in Islamabad.
Pakistan was one of the key players
in the inception of the ACD. As ACD coordinator, Thailand
has been working closely with Pakistan who continues to
play an active role in advancing the ACD process. I am confident
that this fourth ACD Ministerial Meeting, held for the first
time in South Asia, will once again prove to be a successful
forum in advancing the goals of ACD as we strive towards
the realization of a prosperous Asian community.
Excellencies,
As our ACD is entering its fourth
year, we have 26 members as opposed to 18 when we were inaugurated
in June 2002 in Thailand. Time wise, our cooperation may
remain nascent. But judging by number, it was some 44% expansion
in 3 years. The members represent more than half of the
countries in Asia from every regional grouping and every
geographical sub-region of our continent. The membership
is indeed pan-Asia, representing everything that is Asia,
economically, culturally, as much as the value and its diversity.
Our 19 cooperation components are progressing well. Our
New York meetings have proved to be a useful dialogue forum.
For barely just three years, we have started to build a
sense of Asian community, thanks to all of you. This is
quite a remarkable achievement by any standard.
But you know it as much as I do that
this is only the beginning. If the ACD is to bring real
and tangible peace and prosperity to our people in Asia,
the tasks ahead of us remain colossal. A long and winding
road ahead is still awaiting. But getting there, we will.
As envisaged by my Prime Minister
Dr. Thaksin Shinawatra upon launching the ACD in 2002, this
first ever framework for continent-wide cooperation is paving
way for a strong and prosperous Asia. The ACD’s guiding
principles of positive thinking, non-institutionalization,
respect for diversity, and comfort level, have served us
well. Unlike in the past, Asia is now utilizing the continent’s
enormous wealth and assets. Unlike the past, Asia is now
learning to turn diversity into strength. Putting history
behind us, Asia is now cooperating much more consistently
through various building blocks such as ASEAN, SAARC, GCC,
CICA, BIMSTEC, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and East
Asia Community to bridge our gaps to reduce poverty, conflicts
and misunderstanding.
Today, Asia’s building blocks are
linked by the ACD for tomorrow’s stronger and more prosperous
Asian community. Ultimately, Asia’s wealth and strength
is not merely beneficial to Asia but will also be significant
contribution to security, peace and prosperity for the rest
of the world.
Excellencies,
With that scenario in mind, what can
the ACD do?
In simplest term,
the ACD must help Asia meet the challenges of today and
tomorrow. The ACD must place these challenges high on its
agenda. And the ACD must be the platform that incorporates
Asian countries to create an Asian community on the one
hand, and reaches out for partnership with others.
Let me turn
now to some of these challenges.
Poverty. Poverty is a major obstacle for
Asia to achieve sustainable growth and becoming a stronger
partner for other regions. Poverty eradication begins at
home and should be guided by the principles of self-help
and partnership. In the very words of Prime Minister Shaukat
Aziz, we have to help each other to help ourselves. Relying
only on foreign assistance or ODA and encouraging growth
from exports alone cannot eradicate poverty. We must double
and quadruple our effort to strengthen our grassroots economy.
They are the backbone of our economic strength. With different
levels of economic development in Asia, we can share our
experiences, our misgivings and our best practices to combine
our efforts to reduce poverty and inequity both within
each country and amongst each other.
The second challenge is human resource
development. Asia’s competitiveness in SMEs cooperation,
agriculture, tourism, and e-education cannot be enhanced
without capacity building and increasing the quality
of our workforce. The
establishment of an “ACD Human Resources Development Center”
and an ACD Study Center as proposed by the ACD Think Tanks
Symposium in Thailand last year are important initiatives
in sharing available resources and expertise based on our
diverse strength.
The third major challenge is energy.
The continual rise in oil prices is of critical concern
to all of us. The volatility of oil prices has forced Asian
countries to look for a common and comprehensive energy
security strategy that seeks new and alternative energy,
especially renewable energy, and policies to increase energy
sufficiency.
Asia is home to some
of the world’s major energy producers as well as consumers.
We need to reverse the gap between production and consumption
levels in Asia as tight supplies and high prices could undermine
the economic growth and development in Asia. The energy
situation, if not well managed, could slow down our effort
to reduce and eradicate poverty. Our commitment to the Qingdao
Initiative as endorsed at the Third ACD Ministerial Meeting
in China in June 2004 is crucial to attaining energy sustainability
in Asia for long-term development. The proposal for an “Asian
Energy Community” is well worth every consideration to enhance
further cooperation between energy producing and energy
consuming countries in Asia.
The fourth major challenge of Asia
is financial instability. Thailand as prime mover on financial
cooperation is working in partnership with the ACD members in designing a new financial architecture in Asia. We
are committed to the development of a regional bond market
as envisaged in the Chiang Mai Declaration adopted by the
ACD Foreign Ministers in June 2003. Asian countries have
previously concentrated their efforts on the development
of the demand side of the Asian Bond Market. We are now
focusing our efforts on the supply of bonds and market infrastructure
with emphasis placed on promoting the supply of quality
bond denominated in local currency. I am pleased that this
ACD Ministerial Meeting is held in Islamabad where you have
one of the world’s financial experts who happens to be sitting
as Prime Minister in this beautiful country.
The fifth major challenge is natural
disaster. The December 26 Tsunami disaster left a devastating
impact of unprecedented scale on Asia. Yet, Asia was quick
to respond, starting with the Jakarta Summit, the China-ASEAN
meeting and the Phuket Ministerial Meeting on Regional Cooperation
on Tsunami Early Warning Arrangements which I was honoured
to chair. The tsunami disaster re-emphasized how prone Asia
can be to natural catastrophe. Preventive measures and relief
arrangements for all natural disasters become imperative.
I propose that we should consider an ACD standby arrangement
for relief operation where we share check-lists relief operation
apparatus and equipment ready to be on emergency call wherever
a disaster strikes in Asia.
Finally, there is a question of environmental
degradation and preservation. Asia is rich with natural
resources, biodiversity, tropical forests and sanctuaries.
But are we taking good care of our ecosystem enough to hand
it over to our children and their children in good shape?
How have we done with our air, our water, and our noise
pollution? Perhaps, our ACD should look into the Asian wisdom
to protect and preserve our ecosystem. Nature and environment
preservation, after all, is not for competing but collaboration.
Excellency the Prime Ministers,
Excellencies,
Distinguished
Guests, Ladies and gentlemen,
No doubt, the ACD will continue to
grow and expand. As we are doing so, many countries and
organizations, even outside Asia, express their interests
in engaging with the ACD. For the ACD to be beneficial mutually
both for Asia and the rest of the world, we must not be
shut in. On the contrary, we must formulate linkages to
open up with others outside the continent. I fully endorse
Premier Wen Jiabao that the ACD is not exclusive and must
be open to the outside world. By engaging those interested
countries, we can reach the ultimate goal of not only to
increase Asia’s competitiveness and capacity, but also to
build Asia as a stronger partner for the global community.
As we progress in all our cooperation
projects, which range from energy security to e-education,
from agriculture to IT development, from tourism to science
and technology, from SMEs cooperation to road safety, there
seems to be increasing need to seek more mandate and more
commitment. The ACD is progressing so well and so fast that
it has reached a stage that requires refreshing mandate
from the leaders to inject strength and guidance on the
future direction towards the goal of realizing an Asian Community. The ACD project
and dialogue components may have reached a stage where blessings
by our leaders would give the necessary mandate for sectoral Ministers to deepen and broaden
the ACD cooperation.
With this in mind, Thailand is offering, for your
consideration, to host the first ACD Summit in the near
future. More importantly, such an opportunity will provide
leaders to exchange views as part of the dialogue component
of the ACD which is important for the trust and confidence-building
for Asia.
As we address the opportunities and
challenges facing Asia, there is yet another front where
Asia can provide significant contribution. I believe that
while there is a unanimous call for reform, more efficiency
more effectiveness and more transparency, the United Nations
remains the most important multilateral system for global
peace, security, prosperity and development. While reforming
the UN to become more efficient, more effective and more
transparent require thorough consideration, require efforts
and rational inputs from all, Asia must offer our share
of contribution in the process. And there are many ways
to do that. I do hope that members of ACD will all take
active interest in this.
Equally, I believe that regional groupings
serve as important foundation for effective multilateralism.
There must be better mechanism to allow regional groupings
to supplement the role of multilateralism. Last April, our
Asian Group in New York reached a consensus to enable Asia
to make more contribution to the multilateral system by
announcing that since it has been 40 years that the last
Secretary-General from Asia took office, the term of the
next Secretary-General to succeed Kofi Annan would be Asia’s
turn. As the most populous continent and encompassing over
a quarter of the UN’s membership with its growing significance
in the world affairs, Asian nations bear a high responsibility
for strengthening multilateralism and contributing to the
UN’s effectiveness. We, ACD can move to support our New
York Asian Group by working together proactively to gain
similar consensus from elsewhere. Asia can take pride in
this undertaking only when Asia chooses to favour Asia.
Inevitably, the combined ACD efforts will be most meaningful
to put an Asian to succeed Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
I am confident that Asia, through our ACD, will not allow
this opportunity to slip away.
Finally please allow me once again
to thank His Excellency Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, and
the Government and people of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan
for the warm hospitality extended to me and my delegation.
I am confident that this fourth ACD Ministerial Meeting
will be concluded on an extremely positive note under the
Pakistani chairmanship and will provide the crucial political
support for the future path for development and consolidation
of the ACD process.
Thank you.
