TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
ASEAN greets fourth industrial revolution
What’s more, the accelerating pace of change calls for adult training and life-long learning not just early-life education.
Change Size
A worker arranges sticks of the hand-rolled kretek brand, Dji Sam Soe, at the PT HM Sampoerna factory at Surabaya’s Rungkut Industrial Estate. (JP/Wahyoe Boediwardhana)
W
hen the leaders of ASEAN gather for their 31st Summit in the Philippines this week, they will also celebrate “ASEAN@50” — testimony to ASEAN’s endurance and durability, as the longest-running regional grouping of developing countries in the world.
A major item on the agenda will be regional security and addressing the rising tide of terrorism. This takes ASEAN back to its roots, having been born as a politico-security pact during the Vietnam War in 1967.
Indeed, ASEAN’s role in sustaining peace and stability in Southeast Asia is often undervalued, if not overlooked. It’s easy to see why. War cannot go unnoticed but peace can, easily. ASEAN deserves its share of the credit for delivering the peace dividend. Moving forward, its economic success may depend on a different kind of revolution.
The summary of Key Outcomes from the 49th ASEAN Economic Ministers Meeting in September noted that the overall thematic priority of this year’s Summit would be “Inclusive, Innovation-led Growth.”
