South & Central Asia
The summit saw the establishment of an Eminent Persons Group on the ASEAN Charter—comprising 10 highly distinguished and well respected citizens from ASEAN Member Countries—to examine and provide recommendations on the direction of ASEAN and the nature of the Charter. Leaders welcomed the 4th and 5th rounds of the Six-Party Talks held in July and November in Beijing, and called on all concerned parties to exert their utmost effort toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. They strongly condemned terrorism and reiterated the need to intensify their efforts to eliminate the root causes of terrorism at the bilateral, regional, and multilateral levels. Over the years, China has also increased its port and logistics construction in Sri Lanka. While once thought that the tourism industry would continue to scale up in Sri Lanka, terror bombings in April of 2019 have deterred guests from visiting the small island country. In this situation, the countries of Southeast Asia have th