HIS Royal Highness Prince Mohamed Bolkiah yesterday chaired the 14th Asean Plus Three (APT) Foreign Ministers’ Meeting at the International Convention Centre (ICC), Berakas, and stated that the APT has become an extremely important partnership between the countries involved.

The Asean Foreign Ministers and Foreign Ministers from China, Japan and the Republic of Korea exchanged views on regional and international issues, reviewed the progress of APT cooperation and discussed its future direction.

In the opening statement, His Royal Highness also outlined three specific areas which the APT has focused on and the first was personal security.

“Our work in the Plus Three has helped our people through many difficult times, such as the financial crisis with the Chiang Mai Initiative, the SARS epidemic soon after that and the setting up of rice reserves,” stated His Royal Highness.

His Royal Highness also highlighted the second area – that the very solid relationship in trade and investment built with South Korea, Japan and China has now added up to more than a quarter of the total trade as well as 20 per cent of total investment in the region over the last five years through individual free trade agreements.

“That is why we are now able to start on our plan to create a single market of over three billion people which would be the biggest trading base ever,” said HRH Prince Mohamed Bolkiah, adding that this is a remarkable achievement for the APT.

The third and last area that His Royal Highness mentioned was the future well-being of the APT people, where a lot of important cooperation has been seen in matters that have a direct affect, like health, education, employment and labour conditions.

“I think that we have had a period of very successful and lasting cooperation and one that is extremely important to us in Asean,” said His Royal Highness before closing his statement.

The Asean Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (AMM) and APT meetings were also attended by Her Royal Highness Princess Hajah Masna, Ambassador-at-Large at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, who also represented Brunei at the Asean-China Post Ministerial Conference. - Borneo Bulletin (1 July 2013)