Malaysian Ambassador moots Manama ASEAN Committee

Malaysian Ambassador Dato’ Ahmad Shahizan Abd Samad has proposed to establish a Manama Asean Committee for better coordination.

Dato’ was speaking during the meeting of the ambassadors of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) at a hotel here yesterday.

It would be a great opportunity for the Asean nationals, who had been facing a lot of problems with labour laws and other issues. If such a committee was established, they would be in a better position to speak about the problems of the ASEAN nationals, he said.   

Ambassador of Indonesia Chilman Arisman, Charge de Affairs Brunei Darussalam Nor Huda Ahmad, Charge de Affairs Thailand Hatchaicanok Fruman and Charge de Affairs of Philippines Embassy Maria Paz Cortes attended the meeting. 

The other participants were Head of Chancery, Malaysia Embassy Nurul Huda Ab Rahim; First Secretary Thai Embassy Paween Thanarat; Third Secretary Brunei Embassy Johari Haji Mohammad Hashim; Third Secretary Philippines Embassy Joaquin Ricardo; Third Secretary Malaysia Embassy Mohd Aderin Azi Mohd Uzir and Personal Assistant to Ambassador of Malaysia Suria Hanem.  

Speaking to DT News, Malaysian Ambassador and former Director General of ASEAN said that Asean countries were going to be one entity with the name of Asean community just like the European Union at the end of this year.

He said the main objective of the meeting was to have a get-together of the Asean ambassadors in Bahrain and highlight some of the outcomes of the 27th Asean summit held recently in Malaysia. Currently, five out of the 10-member states of ASEAN  have their embassies in Bahrain.

He said that they would conduct the ASEAN games in Bahrain next year and Foreign Minister Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa had agreed to be the patron of the games. The games will take place at different times during the whole year. Through games we want to bring all together, he says.

“We are a small community here in Bahrain but still a very strong force. In Bahrain, we have 124,000 Asean nationals including 90,000 from the Philippines and 10,000 each from Thailand and Indonesia,” says the ambassador.

Trade volume between Bahrain and Malaysia is small but there is a highest level of exchange of official visits between the two countries. Being the Muslim state unlike others, Malaysia has ambassadors in all the GCC countries.

He said that the challenges ahead were the building of political cohesiveness, better economic integration and more coordinated and responsible society.

“There are three pillars of Asean community – Asean Political and Security Community, ASEAN Economic Community and ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community,” he says.

The Malaysian Ambassador said that they did not have any guiding principles for the first 40 years but now they had a charter. 

He said that the people were the strength of the ASEAN community and they had about 650 million population quite bigger than the European Union. “We are very resourceful and blessed,” he stressed.

Charge de Affairs Brunei Darussalam Nor Huda Ahmad told DT News that through this meeting they could better identify more things to do for the betterment of their community and find ways to improve communications among the Asean nationals.

 She said that the objective of the meeting was to discuss the activities within the ASEAN community. “We want to make people know about the Asean especially about the establishment of Asean community on December 31,” she adds.

She said that after this meeting they were hopeful that they could better introduce the Asean community here in Bahrain - through different activities, especially the sports.