In a bid to expand multilateral cooperation among Southeast Asia’s so-called “Plus Three” grouping of China, Japan and Korea, ASEAN-Korea Center’s secretary-general hosted his counterparts from the ASEAN centers of China and Japan on Friday.

ASEAN-Korea Center Secretary-General Chung Hae-moon hosted counterparts Ma Ming-qiang of China and Yoshikuni Ohnishi of Japan at the ASEAN-Korea Center in downtown Seoul.

They agreed to seven areas of cooperation, including linking their respective websites, information sharing and personnel exchanges. Other potential areas for multilateral cooperation include organizing joint seminars, joint publications, a tourism expo and tripartite youth exchange programs.

Chung said promoting the importance of Southeast Asia to Korea was crucial. 

“The level of public awareness of ASEAN is less than its real importance to Korea. Southeast Asia’s ‘political address’ in the mind of the Korean public is still small,” he said. “The public sees the center through the prism of the media.”

The three organizations have yet to lay down a formal mechanism for multilateral cooperation. The Seoul meeting was their second. They convened for the first time on the sidelines of the 12th ASEAN Tourism Forum in Vientiane, Laos, on Jan. 20.

They are scheduled to meet again on the sidelines of next year’s tourism forum but, additionally, may also meet as early as this year.

The organizations are unique among ASEAN’s many partner groups. The three centers engage in programs and activities aimed at increasing trade volume, investment, tourism and cultural exchanges with ASEAN. Although Japan’s ASEAN center opened more than three decades ago in 1981, Korea’s opened in 2009 and China’s in 2011, just two years ago.

(ephilip2011@heraldcorp.com)