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ew Zealand is actively committed to ASEAN taking the lead to support regional integration, as well as to providing aid for the less-developed ASEAN countries, officials said during the 25th ASEAN-New Zealand dialogue held in Jakarta on Wednesday.

The dialogue was held to review the progress of the implementation of the 2016-2020 New Zealand-ASEAN plan of action, which was a follow-up to the upgrading of the ASEAN-New Zealand partnership from “comprehensive” to “strategic” during the 40th ASEAN-New Zealand summit in 2015. The deputy secretary for the Americas and Asia at New Zealand’s Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry, Ben King, said his country supported the ASEAN-centered regional frameworks, such as the East Asia Summit, the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and the ASEAN Defense Minister Meeting Plus (ADMM+).

“[The ASEAN-led forums] represent an important opportunity to share views on the risks and opportunities in the increasingly dynamic world,” he said. “Our engagement with ASEAN has always been constructive and honest. We do not engage in megaphone diplomacy, but we seek to have a meaningful engagement with our partners.”

He said the people-to-people interactions between ASEAN and New Zealand had been getting stronger, noting that thousands of ASEAN students have studied in New Zealand, while tourism also continues to grow.

Wednesday’s dialogue was the last meeting that Indonesia was to co-chair as country coordinator with New Zealand as Indonesia’s stint as coordinator is to end in July this year. Jose Tavares, the Foreign Ministry’s ASEAN cooperation director general, said in the last three years, ASEAN and New Zealand had executed 52 of 59 action plans devised in 2016.

Among the accomplishments, he said, were meetings co-chaired by New Zealand in ASEAN-led regional forums, including an ARF intersessional meeting on non-proliferation and disarmament and an ADMM+ expert working group on cybersecurity.

He said New Zealand had been engaged in a conference about marine debris that came out of the East Asia Summit last September. “The conference was the implementation of the East Asia Summit statement on enhancing rational maritime cooperation that was adopted in 2015. Through this conference we look forward to continue cooperating to address marine plastic debris.”

The Foreign Ministry’s director for ASEAN cooperation, Benny Yan Pieter Siahaan, said New Zealand committed to provide NZ$20 million (US$14.7 million) for disaster risk management programs and NZ$200 million for the 2015 Millennium Development Goals post-achievement program for the period covering 2016 to 2018.