On 17 November 2008, Mr. Richard Woolcott, Special Envoy of Prime Minister of Australia, called on Mr. Sompong Amornvivat, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, at the Foreign Ministry with an aim to elucidate on the vision of Asia-Pacific Community (APC), a regional architecture proposed by Mr. Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister of Australia.
Mr. Virasak Futrakul, Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs who was also present during the discussion, suggested that Australia may consider circulating a paper on APC during the East Asian Summit (EAS) to be held in Chiang Mai in December 2008, to explore APC with participants in the 14th ASEAN Summit.
Earlier in June, Mr. Kevin Rudd proposed that countries in Asia-Pacific begin a discussion about how to shape regional architecture to take advantage of the opportunities and meet the challenges of the Asia-Pacific century ahead. Although the current regional architecture, which includes ASEAN, EAS, APEC and ARF, have been effective but presently there is no one piece of architecture where all the key players can come together to discuss the whole ranges of issues.
Mr.Woolcott has already visited four ASEAN Countries, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.
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