ASEAN Secretary-General to deliver keynote address at ECLAC headquarters

The Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Kao Kim Hourn, will visit the headquarters of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in Santiago, Chile, on Thursday, September 5, as part of his first official tour of the South American country.

The senior official will meet with the Executive Secretary of the United Nations regional organization, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, and then at 4:30 p.m. (GMT -4) will give a keynote speech on multilateral relations between Asian nations and those of Latin America and the Caribbean, in which he will address opportunities for deepening international trade between the two blocs.

Following the welcoming remarks by ECLAC’s Executive Secretary, the Undersecretary for International Economic Relations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile (MINREL), Claudia Sanhueza Riveros, will also address the attendees during the event.

The activity is organized jointly by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Undersecretariat of International Economic Relations, represented respectively by the Director of Asia Pacific, Ambassador Pablo Arriarán Ahumada, and the Head of the Asia and Oceania Department of the Bilateral General Directorate of SUBREI, Pablo Urria Hering.

It is worth remembering that Chile was the second country in the world, after Germany, to obtain the status of “Development Partner” of ASEAN, a decision adopted at the 34th Summit of the organization held in Bangkok in 2019. The Association is made up of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, with a population of over 650 million inhabitants.

The delegation accompanying the ASEAN Secretary-General will comprise the Director of the Board of Directors for Foreign Relations of the ASEAN Community Political Security Department, Mr. Bala Kumar Palaniappan; the Director of the Executive Support Division of the Office of the Secretary-General, Mr. Dara Lux; the Senior Officer of the Foreign Relations Division of the ASEAN Community Political Security Department, Ms. Desy Nurmala Dewi; and the Senior Officer of the Executive Support Division of the Office of the Secretary-General, Mr. A. Ibrahim Almuttaqi.

The Executive Secretary of ECLAC will also be joined at the meeting by Luis Fidel Yánez, Secretary of the Commission; Keiji Inoue, Officer in Charge of the International Trade and Integration Division of ECLAC; and Silvia Hernandez, Chief of Staff of the Office of the Executive Secretary.

Following Kao Kim Hourn’s keynote address, there will be a question and answer session with attendees at the event, including representatives of the diplomatic corps accredited in Chile, members of other United Nations System organizations with a presence in the country, authorities from regional and international entities, academics and other special guests.

Journalists and media representatives are invited to watch the ASEAN Secretary-General’s keynote address live at: https://live.cepal.org/asean/ and in the institutional accounts of ECLAC in X (https://x.com/cepal_onu) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/cepal.onu).

That: Keynote address by Kao Kim Hourn, Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), at ECLAC.

When: Thursday, September 5, 2024, 4:30 p.m. Chile time (GMT -4 hrs).

Who is it:

• Kao Kim Hourn, Secretary General of ASEAN.
• José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, Executive Secretary of ECLAC.
• Claudia Sanhueza Riveros, Undersecretary of International Economic Relations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile (MINREL).

Where: ECLAC headquarters in Santiago, Chile (Av. Dag Hammarskjöld 3477, Vitacura).

Also virtual connection through various platforms:

For questions related to media coverage of the event, please contact the Public Information Unit of ECLAC in Santiago, Chile. Email: [email protected]; telephone: (56) 22210 2040.