THE Association of Southeast Asian Nations has entered a “new era” of cooperation that will pave the way for greater accountability within the grouping, the outgoing ASEAN secretary general, Mr Ong Keng Yong, said last week.

He was speaking on November 22 in an exclusive interview with The Myanmar Times in Singapore, where heads of state or government from the grouping gathered last week to sign the landmark ASEAN charter as well as a major document to establish an ASEAN economic community by 2015.

The Singapore summit also marked the 40th anniversary of the founding of ASEAN.

“The idea of the ASEAN charter is to convince all our friends outside of ASEAN that we are serious about our organisation’s cause and we want to convince people that the way to go forward for the next 40 years is to commit ourselves to certain organisational behaviour to ensure that whatever we agree upon has been committed and implemented,” Mr Ong said.

“This charter must be seen as an attempt by ASEAN to organise ourselves more effectively and to use this effectiveness to convince all our friends around the world that ASEAN has entered into a new period, a new era,” he said.

The charter, which has been planned since 2005, was signed on November 20 by ASEAN leaders at the end of their one-day summit.

Many provisions in the charter uphold longstanding policies of the 10-nation grouping, including respect for independence, sovereignty, equality and the territorial integrity of member states, as well as non-interference in their internal affairs.

It also upholds ASEAN’s cardinal principle of decision-making through consensus.

However, Mr Ong said other important provisions in the charter make ASEAN more accountable in implementing projects agreed by member states.

Mr Ong, said that in the past ASEAN had worked as closely as members of the same family but had lacked predictability and accountability.

“Therefore this charter brings to ASEAN citizens a new framework to develop a new mindset; that mindset must be that we are now members of a very serious intergovernmental body,” he said.

“The charter allows our ASEAN citizens to be more convinced that this family is no longer just an informal gathering, it is a very serious organisation which will be help to bring all the necessary developmental arrangements [and achieve] plans and goals that are laid down.”

Mr Ong said the other important agreement signed at the summit, on establishing an ASEAN economic community, aimed to help the less well developed members of the grouping.

The agreement aims to remove trade barriers as well as allow the free flow of services, investment, skilled labour and capital.

The agreement allows a further three years from 2015 for the newest ASEAN members –Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia – to open up their trade.

“We give flexibility and extra time but we expect the less developed economies to seize the opportunity,” Mr Ong said.

“In the integration plan we also have a variety of ideas to help less developed ASEAN economies,” he said.

The agreement on establishing an economic community calls on older members of the grouping – Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Brunei – to help the other four states to increase economic competitiveness by promoting domestic and foreign investment as well as in promoting private sector businesses.

As ASEAN moves towards economic integration, the sanctions imposed on Myanmar by ASEAN’s key economic partners, the United States and the European Union, were a matter of concern for the grouping, Mr Ong said.