Regional leaders deliver speeches at 21st WEF on East Asia

BANGKOK, June 1 (TNA) - Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and other participating leaders, including World Economic Forum (WEF) founder Klaus Martin Schwab and Secretary General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Surin Pitsuwan, delivered their speeches at the World Economic Forum on East Asia 2012, which was inaugurated in Bangkok Thursday afternoon. As Thailand hosts the 21st WEF on East Asia at the Shangri-La Hotel in Bangkok from May 30-June 1, Premier Yingluck first delivered her speech as host of the event, followed by other regional leaders, including Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, Lao Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong and Bahraini Prime Minister His Royal Highness Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa. As part of her speech, Yingluck said that physical connectiveness is almost complete in the region, citing key infrastructure projects, namely the Singapore-Kunming railway link which will connect Thailand with northern China, Laos, Malaysia and Singapore. The Thai prime minister noted that non-physical infrastructure projects in the region are also needed to be addressed, including laws and regulations to ensure free cross-border movements of people and products, as well as the improvement of regional security and the prevention and suppression of illegal activities namely drug and human trafficking. In their speeches, leaders of the four other ASEAN member countries reaffirmed the 10-member bloc’s commitment to form the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015, as scheduled, and to build ASEAN connectivity, the focal point of the ASEAN’s integration. Meanwhile, Myanmar's pro-democracy icon and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who arrived in Bangkok on May 29 in her first foreign trip in more than two decades, did not attend the opening ceremony of the WEF on East Asian 2012, but she participated on the sidelines of the regional forum Thursday morning and delivered her speech at the 21st WEF on East Asia on Friday. Suu Kyi, who is also a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, chatted briefly with Premier Yingluck during a dinner reception for the regional leaders hosted by the Thai premier at the Royal Thai Navy Convention Hall in the Thai capital Thursday evening. (TNA)