PASAY CITY 25 July 2022 — Undersecretary and ASEAN Senior Official Meeting (SOM) Leader Ma. Theresa P. Lazaro welcomed the Special Envoy of Brazil to ASEAN Piragibe S. Tarrag?, and his delegation at the Department of Foreign Affairs on 19 July 2022.
Undersecretary Lazaro conveyed the Philippines’ support for Brazil’s application for Sectoral Dialogue Partnership, which will be subject to further deliberation by the ASEAN Member States. Ambassador Tarrag? noted that Brazil was the first Latin American country to sign the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) with ASEAN in 2012. He underscored Brazil’s strong interest in deepening its engagement with ASEAN and its member states to advance mutually beneficial cooperation.
The Undersecretary noted Brazil’s expertise in areas which could help facilitate ASEAN’s community-building and post-pandemic recovery efforts, especially in universal health care, forest management and conservation, agriculture, digital transformation and defense, among others. She conveyed the Philippines’ priority areas of cooperation within the ASEAN structure, in particular, support for micro, medium and small-scale enterprises (MSMEs), people-to-people exchanges, diplomatic training and wildlife conservation.
Undersecretary Lazaro also encouraged Brazil to support the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) in light of Brazil’s extensive activities and experience in forest and biodiversity preservation in the Amazon basin. The ACB, based in Los Baños, Laguna, is ASEAN’s lead institution in biodiversity promotion. One of its flagship projects is the management of fifty (50) ASEAN Heritage Parks (AHP) located across all ten ASEAN Member States. AHPs are protected national parks and nature reserves of high conservation importance which aim to preserve the complete spectrum of representative ecosystems in the ASEAN region.
Source: Republic of Philippines Department Of Foreign Affairs