ASEAN One Community underlines importance of intra-bloc communication

There is very little information or intra-regional communication to help people understand and prepare for next year's "ASEAN One Community," international experts have warned.

Speaking at a symposium in Bangkok last weekend on "ASEAN Communication Research," Dr Kamolrat Intaratat, chair of the Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University's Communication Arts for ASEAN programme, said: "Exchange of information, knowledge, and technology among ASEAN member countries should be accelerated. Collaboration and negotiation skills need to be mastered and communications must enhance the process."


From 2015 all ASEAN member countries and their citizens should be capacitated to participate in regional development, which is based on three pillars -- ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC), ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), and ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) – she said.

"All ASEAN member countries and citizens, all stakeholders need to know each other to be more understanding and enhance co-operation, and the role of communication is very important."

The symposium was held as part of efforts to gain knowledge about communications systems in each member country relevant to APSC, AEC, and ASSC and network all relevant stakeholders.

It gathered experts from academia, the media, and from policymaking, who shared their expertise to create a master plan for Communication within ASEAN along the lines of the ICT Master Plan for ASEAN and others.

Information about the communications facilities and infrastructure available in each member country was updated at the symposium.

Nattha Komolvadhin, news editor of Thai Public Broadcasting Service (Thai PBS) said TV is on the way out in Thailand and the internet is taking over, but in countries like Laos and Cambodia, TV remains dominant despite the internet boom.

PBS broadcasts a daily 10-minute programme on the ASEAN One Community.

Vu Thuy Lien, vice director of the Ministry of Science and Technology's Centre for Science and Technology Exchange, said: "The ASEAN One Community will be a very important change for each country and Viet Nam wants to boost co-operation with other member nations to become one community."

The symposium asked delegate to consider three key questions: ‘Why do we need to communicate within ASEAN?' ‘How will we communicate?' ‘How can we select or use an appropriate channel and medium?

A draft framework of the Communication Master Plan for ASEAN will be released soon.

Around 40 experts from nine countries took part in the symposium.