28 Jan 2020
JAKARTA, 28 January 2020 – The Republic of Korea (ROK) contributed US$ 500,000 to ASEAN in support of its efforts to facilitate the repatriation of the verified returnees in Rakhine State, Myanmar. Secretary-General of ASEAN Dato Lim Jock Hoi received the contribution from Ambassador of ROK to ASEAN Lim Sungnam at a handover ceremony held at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta.
The ROK fund will be utilised to implement one of ASEAN’s priority projects in Rakhine State that aims to strengthen information dissemination by supplying radio receivers to the local community.
The Permanent Representative of Myanmar to ASEAN Ambassador Min Lwin was present to witness the ceremony. The Committee of Permanent Representatives to ASEAN, Ambassadors of Dialogue Partners to ASEAN, representatives from ASEAN centres, as well as representatives of international organisations based in Jakarta, also attended.
“ASEAN appreciates the Government of the Republic of Korea as one of the first ASEAN Dialogue Partners to support our activities in the Rakhine State,” said Dato Lim. He added that with the contribution, “the Government of Myanmar will be able to scale up efforts in information dissemination and gain a wider outreach in the Rakhine State.”
Ambassador Lim elaborated that “ROK’s contribution indeed pursues the people-centred community of peace and prosperity of ASEAN in line with the core philosophy of the New Southern Policy of the Korean government.” He also expressed hope that ROK’s contribution would be helpful to expedite the implementation of an ASEAN project in Rakhine State.
“We are in gratitude of the ROK’s support that will contribute positively to the implementation of projects and activities as recommended by the Needs Assessment Reports and various advisory mechanisms initiated by the Myanmar Government,” said Ambassador Min Lwin.
The priority project that is funded by ROK is part of the recommendations from the Preliminary Need Assessment, aimed at facilitating the repatriation process.
The ASEAN Secretariat is working closely with the Government of Myanmar in implementing the repatriation project as the priority activity in Rakhine State since it was welcomed by the ASEAN Leaders at the 35th ASEAN Summit held in Bangkok in November 2019.
