Shanghai – Officials of the eight Consulates General of ASEAN Member States in Shanghai assembled at the Royal Thai Consulate General on 06 August to raise the ASEAN flag in honor of the organization’s 54th Founding Anniversary.
Leading the ceremony were Consuls General Neang Samrithkomar of Cambodia, Deny W. Kurnia of Indonesia, Syed Farizal Aminy Syed Mohamad of Malaysia, Josel Francisco Ignacio of the Philippines, Chua Teng Hoe of Singapore, Lada Phumas of Thailand and Ninh Thanh Cong of Viet Nam. Lao PDR was represented by Acting Consul General Phakhansith Phomchaleun.
Guesting at the event were officials of the Foreign Affairs Office of the Shanghai Municipal Government led by Consular Affairs Director Mme. Yan Yanqiu.
Consul General Ignacio was principal speaker and delivered a well-received address. “One cannot help but marvel at the prescience that accompanied ASEAN’s birth”, said the Consul General, citing some of the purposes of ASEAN inscribed in the Bangkok Declaration of 8 August 1967. “These remain the guideposts and aspirations by which ASEAN evolves as fulcrum, driver and architect of regional security and development cooperation and chief catalyst for relevant regional action.” He also paid tribute to the role of ASEAN-China Dialogue Relations, which also marks its 30th anniversary this year.
It was the first such flag-raising ceremony by ASEAN Consulates General in recent memory. Apart from the anniversary, the Consuls General also organized the ceremony to kick off a reinvigorated, sustained and deliberate effort to raise the profile of ASEAN in Shanghai and the larger, fast-growing Yangtze River Delta Region. With the city’s rapid rise as a growth engine and global city with vast international links, Shanghai has become the locus of fierce competition for business, political and even diplomatic attention.
Currently, eight out of ten ASEAN Member States maintain consular missions in Shanghai, whose respective consular jurisdictions also generally cover the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui. The Philippine Consulate General has oversight over the same areas, with the addition of Hubei province. END
