Thai PM to attend 20th ASEAN Summit in Cambodia next week

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BANGKOK, March 29 — Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Sinawatra will attend the 20th Summit of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders scheduled to be held April 3-4 in Phnom Penh.

Cambodia, whose chairmanship was handed over from Indonesia last year, will for the first time host the ASEAN summit and related meetings scheduled for March 30-April 4. The summit will mark the 45th anniversary of the establishment of the reginal bloc.

According to the Cambodian foreign ministry, the leaders are expected to adopt documents, including the Phnom Penh Declaration on ASEAN: One Community, One Destiny; the ASEAN Leaders’ Declaration on a Drug Free ASEAN 2015, and a Concept Paper on the Global Movement of Moderates.

In order to celebrate the regional’s body’s 45th anniversary, the leaders will also issue a “Chairman’s Statement on the 45th anniversary of ASEAN: The Way Forward.”

The 10 national leaders will also follow up the development of the ASEAN Community to be implemented in 2015 and exchange ideas on a regional agenda that will be mutually benificial.

The Thai prime minister will propose various initiatives related to disaster management, the atmospheric haze problem, ASEAN Connectivity and upgrading suppression of the trade in illicit drugs.

Ms Yingluck will also attend the 6th Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT-GT) to update and follow up the action plan of the past five years. The group will discuss the next five year action plan (2012-2016) for continued development.