KLCC, Malaysia
22 November 2015
President Benigno S. Aquino III and the rest of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders concluded the 27th ASEAN Summit and Related Summits that was chaired this year by Malaysia.
The two-day Summit saw the realization of the regional bloc’s vision to build and achieve community status by 2015 with the historic signing of the 2015 Kuala Lumpur Declaration on the Establishment of the ASEAN Community, and the Kuala Lumpur Declaration on ASEAN 2025: Forging Ahead Together.
As Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak stated in his earlier remarks, “This is about how we build upon and deepen the integration process to realize a rules-based, people-oriented, people-centered ASEAN Community in which we seek to narrow the development gap. It is an ambitious document – but ambition is part of our heritage.”
Apart from the Summit among the ten ASEAN Heads of State/Government, fruitful and significant discussions also ensued with the leaders from China, Japan, Republic of Korea, India, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, United States of America and the United Nations Secretary-General.
Malaysia formally turned over ASEAN’s Chairmanship in 2016 to Lao People’s Democratic Republic.
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