THE year 2025 is fast approaching. For Malaysia, 2025 will be the year we take over the chairmanship of the world’s fifth-largest economic bloc, with its 680-million strong population.
As one of this regional grouping’s founding fathers in 1967 – together with Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand – Asean has been such an integral part of Malaysia’s past, present and future that our chairmanship in 2025 is nothing less than a defining moment on how we could lead the region towards realising its current potential fully.