Over 80% See Themselves As Citizens of ASEAN! S'pore Their Favourite ASEAN Country!

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

SINGAPORE: Every ASEAN member state, including Singapore, will benefit from the ASEAN Economic Community which will be established by year's end, said Foreign Affairs Minister K Shanmugam at the 48th ASEAN Day reception on Monday (Aug 24).

The reception was attended by about 450 people, comprising diplomats, community leaders and academics. Mr Shanmugam also announced that every ASEAN member state will be conferring an ASEAN People's Award this year to recognise citizens or organisations who have made excellent contributions towards ASEAN's community-building efforts.

Said Mr Shanmugam: "The ASEAN Economic Community is not the 'be all' and 'end all' of the ASEAN Community. A big piece of the ASEAN story is about forging a stronger sense of ASEAN identity, amongst our peoples, especially our youths. We have made many efforts on that front and we are seeing some results."

Mr Shanmugam said this was evident in the results of the ASEAN Awareness and Attitudes survey findings revealed on Monday. The survey, which was conducted by the ASEAN Studies Centre at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, polled 4,623 students from 22 universities across the 10 member states.

The findings showed that students had positive attitudes towards ASEAN and over 80 per cent considered themselves "citizens of ASEAN". Results also showed students ranking Singapore as the first preferred destination to work and travel.

"Building a national identity itself is a work in progress let alone building a supranational identity but we have to try because as one community, we can achieve so much more," said Mr Shanmugam. "My takeaway from the survey is yes, there is ambivalence, but there at the same there is an understanding of the identity and it's for us to work on the ambivalence."

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/....html?cid=fbsg


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