Thai PM joins ASEAN Summit Retreat

BANGKOK, April 25 (TNA) - Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra joined the ASEAN summit retreat session on Thursday morning, as part of the agenda of the last-day 22nd ASEAN Summit, hosted by Brunei Darussalam from April 24-25. According to a press release issued by Brunei Prime Minister's Office, the closed-door retreat of leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) focuses on issues under the theme of the ASEAN Summit 2013, "Our People, Our Future Together", with a special attention paid to people's roles in the ASEAN Community, set to be formed by 2015. The ASEAN leaders and their delegations then attended a luncheon organized by the host country to wrap up the morning session. Two sideline forums were set to be held, also in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei's capital, on Thursday afternoon, including the 9th Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) Meeting and the 7th Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT-GT) Meeting, in which the Thai prime minister is also scheduled to participate. The 22nd ASEAN Summit kicked off with a working dinner on Wednesday evening, after the arrival in Brunei's capital by the leaders of the 10-member ASEAN bloc and their delegations. Progress of the planned ASEAN integration and directions to strengthen the coordination and capabilities of ASEAN's existing institutional mechanisms were reportedly included on the agenda of the ASEAN Summit 2013. (TNA)