Southeast Asia and the United Kingdom are close partners with a flourishing relationship. Our links go back centuries.

Today our collaboration is strong and growing in all areas. Last year, two-way trade between ASEAN member states and the UK stood at over 40 billion pounds (US$53 billion). Each year 2.3 million UK tourists visit Southeast Asia and 40,000 Southeast Asian citizens study in the UK.

Our work with the region is underpinned by over 300 million pounds of UK Official Development Assistance each year in Southeast Asia. Our scientists work closely together across the region, especially through Newton Fund.

We have a strong relationship with ASEAN, which is central to the Indo-Pacific region. We have worked closely with ASEAN since it was established in 1967, including as a dialogue partner as part of the EU since 1977. Since then, we have strengthened and developed our partnership with ASEAN, signing the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in 2012 and working with ASEAN across its three community pillars.

We took this partnership to a new level when we established our dedicated mission to ASEAN in November 2019, in addition to our embassies and high commissions in all 10 ASEAN member states.

The fight against the COVID-19 pandemic is every country’s top priority. We can only overcome the virus by working together. We must not let this crisis encourage us to build bunkers and walls. We must emerge from this crisis more thoughtful, more global, more united – having overcome these difficult times together and learned that this is the best way to get things done.

International cooperation on vaccines is vital. If we leave the virus anywhere, it could mutate and come back stronger. The UK is working closely with ASEAN member states on vaccine research and plans to deepen our collaboration. AstraZeneca, a leading UK pharmaceutical company, and the University of Oxford, are making impressive progress on developing a COVID-19 vaccine backed by 84 million pounds in UK government funding.

But finding a vaccine proven to be effective and safe is only half the battle. Once we find the vaccine(s), we must ensure they are available to every country according to need. The UK is committed to ensuring the equitable distribution of vaccines and “vaccine multilateralism”.

On Sept. 26, the UK was pleased to announce additional funding of 500 million pounds to COVAX’s Advanced Market Commitment, which supports access to vaccines. This builds on the 48 million pounds we previously pledged.

In this region, AstraZeneca announced on Oct. 12 that it will manufacture its potential vaccine in Thailand, strengthening broad, equitable and timely access to the potential vaccine in Southeast Asia and beyond.

ASEAN is a key partner as we tackle this shared challenge. That is why on Sept. 30 our Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, met ASEAN foreign ministers and the ASEAN secretary-general – in the first meeting of its kind – while visiting Vietnam, ASEAN’s chair in 2020. The meeting agreed a range of measures to deepen our COVID-19 cooperation.

The UK was pleased to announce an additional 6.3 million pounds of support for ASEAN’s work, including 1 million pounds for the COVID ASEAN Response Fund, as part of over 50 million pounds of UK support on COVID-19 to Southeast Asia.

COVID-19 is an unprecedented international health emergency and economic crisis, at once. Many countries around the world are seeing growth reverse and a range of industries are facing new pressures. The UK is facing these challenges alongside our ASEAN partners.

As with our response to the virus, our work to minimize the economic harm and return to growth demands that we work together. That is why UK Secretary of State for International Trade Liz Truss met with her ASEAN counterparts for the first-ever UK ASEAN Economic Dialogue on Aug. 26.

This meeting agreed a range of cooperation between the UK and ASEAN on the economic recovery from COVID, including strengthening ASEAN-UK supply chains, deepening the UK’s digital partnership with ASEAN, ensuring a green and sustainable global economic recovery from COVID-19, and delivering resilient and complex infrastructure projects that boost connectivity in the region.

For sure 2020 has been a difficult year for us all. The UK continues to stand for multilateralism – a world where we live and act within shared rules, and work together to find solutions to our biggest challenges.

The UK and ASEAN are close partners as we face our shared challenges, ranging from COVID-19 to climate change. Together we can come through this period of COVID-19 with a stronger partnership, having built trust through successfully overcoming this hurdle together.

That is the dream we should work toward today.

 ***

The writer is British ambassador to ASEAN.

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