They also agreed with many important issues relating to increasing connectivity, cooperation, solidarity and capacity of the group, advancing towards the goal of building up the ASEAN Community of peace, stability, thriving, for people and democracy by 2015.

To raise awareness of ASEAN and the process of building the Community, the ministers agreed that ASEAN member countries will fly the ASEAN flag by their national flags at all their diplomatic representative agencies as of “ASEAN Day” on August 8, 2011.

Discussing cooperation with partners and the evolving regional situation, the ministers agreed that ASEAN needs to continue to push the development of the regional architecture with it playing the core role and basing on regional cooperation mechanism such as ASEAN+1, ASEAN+3, EAS, ARF, ADMM+ in order to make more efficient contributions to peace, stability, security and development in the region.

Regarding the East Sea, the ministers expressed their concern about recent complicated cases, stressing the importance of ensuring peace, stability, security and maritime safety.

Minister agreed that any disputes between related parties should be resolved by peaceful measures, and by respecting principles of international laws, especially the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of Sea (UNCLOS) and the spirit of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties on the East Sea (DOC).

They affirmed the importance of booting an environment of peace, amity and concord on the East Sea between ASEAN and China to ensure peace, stability, economic growth and prosperity in the region.

They emphasised that DOC is an important collective commitment between ASEAN member countries and China to peacefully solve disputes in the region in accordance with the UNCLOS. Ministers called all parties to respect the maritime and air regulations on the East Sea under principles decided by international laws.