Bob Carr (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, connectivity is very important to ASEAN. The connectivity agenda is taken very seriously throughout the 10 nations that comprise ASEAN. By 2020 Australians will be able to catch a train from Singapore, on the equator, to Kunming in southern China. This massive rail project will connect the major economic hubs of south-east and north-east Asia. It will link more than two billion people, bringing new ideas, opening new markets and creating new business opportunities. ASEAN is building this 7,000-kilometre rail link as a centrepiece of this connectivity agenda: a plan to integrate transport, communications, education and people. It is an example of what the Australian academic Michael Wesley meant when he used the expression 'factory Asia', where China's neighbours are transforming themselves into manufacturers of component parts for products— (Time expired)