JAKARTA, 13 May 2024 – ASEAN and Australia reaffirmed their commitment to further enhancing their Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP) at the 14th ASEAN-Australia Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC) Meeting held today at the ASEAN Headquarters/ASEAN Secretariat.
The Meeting welcomed the outcomes of the Special Summit held in Melbourne on 5-6 March 2024 to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of ASEAN-Australia Dialogue Relations, including the adoption of the Joint Vision Statement-Partners for Peace and Prosperity and the Melbourne Declaration-A Partnership for Future to guide the partnership in the years to come. The Meeting noted the updates by Australia on the follow-up to initiatives announced at the Special Summit and discussed Australia’s proposal to establish an ASEAN-Australia Centre in Canberra.
The Meeting welcomed Australia’s continued support for ASEAN Community-building efforts and ASEAN Centrality as well as its strong commitment to substantially strengthening the CSP with ASEAN. Australia highlighted cooperation programmes under the Australia for ASEAN Futures Initiative (Aus4ASEAN Futures Initiative), which is valued at AUD 204 million over 10 years (2022 to 2032) to support all three ASEAN community pillars. Australia also conveyed its support to Lao PDR’s ASEAN Chairmanship this year.
Both sides noted with satisfaction the significant progress made in areas of cooperation under the ASEAN-Australia Plan of Action 2020-2024. The two sides will also be working on a new POA (2025-2029) which is expected to be adopted at the Post-Ministerial Conference (PMC) Plus One Session with Australia in July 2024.
ASEAN and Australia agreed to continue advancing cooperation under the CSP, including in the four priority areas under the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP) in line with the Joint Statement of the 2nd Annual ASEAN-Australia Summit on Cooperation on the AOIP. Other areas of cooperation were also highlighted such as non-traditional security; maritime; trade and investment; MSMEs; green economy; digital transformation; clean energy; climate change; disaster management; health; TVET; education; people-to-people ties; smart city; connectivity; narrowing the development gap; and sustainable development. Australia also reaffirmed its commitment to providing capacity-building support for Timor-Leste’s full membership of ASEAN.
The 14th ASEAN-Australia JCC Meeting was co-chaired by Permanent Representative of Lao PDR, H.E. Bovonethat Douangchak, and Ambassador of Australia to ASEAN, H.E. Tiffany McDonald. Permanent Representatives of ASEAN Member States and representative of the ASEAN Secretariat were in attendance. Timor-Leste attended as Observer.
