PM Wong to visit Laos from Oct. 9 to 12 for Asean summit & working visit

Singaporean Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Lawrence Wong will be making a working visit to Vientiane, Lao PDR from Oct. 9 to 12.

While there, he will attend the 44th and 45th Asean summit and related summits.

This will be the first Asean summit, as well as the first multilateral summit, attended by PM Wong in his capacity as prime minister.

It also comes as Myanmar sends its first representative to an Asean summit in over three years.

Asean Chairman Laos

Laos is 2024's Asean chair, and is hosting the 44th and 45th Asean summits with the theme “Enhancing Connectivity and Resilience”.

It seeks to underline Asean's substantive and forward-looking agenda to enhance the bloc’s unity and resilience in the face of geopolitical and economic headwinds.

Asean leaders will review Asean’s community-building efforts, as well as discuss ways to create opportunities for people and businesses, particularly in new growth areas such as the digital and green economies.

They will also discuss strengthened, inclusive, and stable regional architecture.

PM Wong and his Asean counterparts will also be discussing ways to expand Asean's engagement with a number of world leaders at the Asean Plus Three Summit and the 19th East Asia Summit.

Asean leaders will also be holding summits with representatives from Australia, Canada, China, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the United Nations, and the United States.

Laos working visit

After the completion of the Asean summit, PM, Wong will also take part in a working visit to Laos and will meet with his Lao counterpart Sonexay Siphandone.

Wong will have a bilateral meeting with Sonexay who will host PM Wong and his delegation to an official dinner on Oct. 11.

PM Wong will also call on Lao President Thongloun Sisoulith on Oct. 12.

PM Wong will be accompanied by Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnam, and in his absence Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade & Industry Gan Kim Yong will be the acting Prime Minister.

Myanmar’s back, sort of

The 2024 Asean summit will also be notable for the return of an official representative of Myanmar.

Ever since the democratically elected government of Myanmar was ousted in a coup in 2021, Myanmar’s government has only been allowed to send a non-political representative, such as a civil servant, to various Asean events.

Myanmar has until 2024 declined to do so.

It has also failed to fully comply with the Five Point Consensus, an agreement with Asean and other stakeholders aimed at restoring political stability to Myanmar.

But as Myanmar’s civil war has failed to be resolved and the Myanmar military government faces increasing pressure from armed rebel groups across the country, it has decided to re engage with Asean.

Myanmar sent a representative from their foreign ministry to an Asean Foreign Ministers retreat earlier in 2024.

Myanmar will also be sending a senior foreign ministry official to the Laos summits, according to AFP, via RFI.

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Top image via Lawrence Wong/Facebook