RI to open a center on E. Asian studies

JAKARTA: Minister of Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirayuda will inaugurate the Center for East Asian Cooperation Studies (CEACoS) in Jakarta on Monday.

To mark the launching of the center, the ministry has organized a one-day seminar on the "Prospects and Challenges in Developing the East Asian Economic Community: The Choices of Policy" at the foreign ministry's Nusantara room on Monday morning.

The center serves as a think-tank to help the ministry in deciding its policies concerning East Asia, including economic powerhouses like Japan, China and South Korea.

The idea of establishing an East Asian community that embraces the member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) -- which first came from Japan -- has set up a discourse among the states within these regions.

East Asian countries have shown their interest initiating it as a discussion forum in the form of an East Asian Summit, but Indonesia as an ASEAN member gave a cold shoulder to the idea, saying that both regions should optimize the existing ASEAN+3 forum instead of starting a new one. -- JP