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Following in the footsteps of the US, these four Asean dialogue partners yesterday announced that they would soon be appointing permanent representatives to the bloc.
They made the commitment at their individual meetings with Asean yesterday. A sixth country, South Korea, may also follow suit.
The US appointed its envoy to Asean, Myanmar-savvy career diplomat Scot Marciel, in April.
Japan said yesterday it would appoint an envoy when the Asean Charter comes into force, following its expected ratification at the Asean Summit in December.
The other three countries did not give specific timings for the appointments, but Asean spokesman Andrew Tan said they would be made 'fairly quickly'.
He added that with Asean becoming a more institutionalised structure, 'it makes sense, with our dialogue partners' relations with Asean growing stronger', that they will want to assign permanent representatives.
Asean has 10 dialogue partners in all, the others being India, Russia, Canada and the European Union.
The provision for them all to have permanent representatives is made in the new charter, which was adopted last November.
Asean on Monday said that a committee of permanent representatives would be set up by Jan 1 next year, meaning that all members are expected to appoint their envoys by then.
On Asean's relations with its dialogue partners, Mr Tan noted yesterday that cooperation was expanding in scope and in breadth.
'The issue right now is one of finding resources to support many of these activities and also prioritising our efforts,' he said.
He added that a key task of the special envoys would be to prioritise areas of cooperation and see how these can be supported and facilitated.
On the plan by several dialogue partners to send envoys, Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said: 'You are seeing a trend of confidence, you are seeing a growth of cooperation between nations.
'This is what Asean is continuing to be, in the centre of the evolution of cooperation within the Asia-Pacific.'
Meanwhile, at the meeting with Japan yesterday, the bloc's third-largest trading partner after the EU and the US, the Asean ministers discussed a comprehensive economic partnership pact that was signed in April.
The two sides agreed to work for early implementation of the pact, 'no later than the end of this year', said Japanese spokesman Kazuo Kodama.
With China, they called for free-trade-area negotiation to be speeded up and for fully liberalised air services.
South Korea proposed a special summit next year to commemorate the 20th anniversary of relations between the two sides while with Australia, a key subject was exchange in education.
Asean and India have started a science and technology development fund with a seed fund of US$1 million (S$1.36 million).
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CHAN CHIH HUNG
