THE 18th ASEAN Chiefs of De-fence Forces Meeting (ACD-FM-18) took place yesterday morning via video conferencing. The meeting was attend-ed by Chairman of the State Administration Council Com-mander-in-Chief of Defence Services Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, Chief of Staff (Army) Lt-Gen Moe Myint Tun and Chief of Military Affairs Security Lt-Gen Ye Win Oo, Commander of Royal Brunei Armed Forces Major-General Dato Seri Pahlawan Haji Hamzah Bin Haji Sahat and delegation, Com-mander-in-Chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces General Vong Pisen and delegation, Chief of Staff of the Indonesian National Armed Forces Lieu-tenant-General Ganip Warsito and delegation, Acting Chief of General Staff Department of Laos Ministry of National De-fence Major-General Chanthong Sontaath and delegation, Com-mander-in-Chief of Malaysian Armed Forces General Tan Sri Dato Hj Affendi bin Buang and delegation, Deputy Command-er-in-Chief of the Philippine Armed Forces Lieutenant-Gen-eral Erickson R. Gloria and del-egation, Chief of Defence Force of Singapore Lieutenant-General Melvyn Ong and delegation, Chief of Defence Forces of the Royal Thai Armed Forces Gen-eral Chalermphon Srisawasdi and delegation and Vice-Chief of Staff of the People’s Army of Viet Nam Senior Lieutenant- General Nguyen Phuong Nam and delegation. First, the Commander of Royal Brunei Armed Forces, who chaired the ACDFM-18, delivered an opening speech. Next, Chairman of AMIM-18 Colonel Haji Mohammad Muluddin Bin Awang Haji Latif of Royal Brunei Armed Forces and Chairman of 11th AMOM Brigadier-General Haji Abdul Razak bin Haji Abdul Kadir of Royal Brunei Armed Forces read meeting reports. Then, the military delegates from ASEAN countries made their discussions in alphabetical order and expressed their opinions about the title “We care, We prepare, We prosper.” In his discussion, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing wished all those in attendance to be free from all forms of dangers amid the Covid-19 crisis. He said with competition from the world’s powerful countries, and geographically strategic location, the ASEAN region is facing conventional security challenges as well as unconventional security challenges such as climate change, scarce resources, natural disasters, irregular migrant worker issue, food scarcity, human trafficking, drug smuggling, information security, piracy, transnational crime, terrorism and pandemic. Among unconventional security challenges, terror-ism and the Covid-19 global pandemic pose a major threat to the whole ASEAN region. So, it would be more effective and successful for the ASEAN countries to seek a solution in a concerted and coordinated effort rather than in an individual effort. Immigration and administrative weaknesses, lack of complete monitoring of illegal cash flow, rampant drug smuggling, which is the major income source of terrorists in the region, and mass accumulation of weapons from other regions are major obstacles to fighting terrorism in the ASEAN region. he Covid-19 global pan-demic has changed the lives of the eight billion people of the world a lot. The governments and the peoples of the relevant countries have to take into account the new normal life. The pandemic has much impact on the socio-economic sector, causing a rise in the poverty rate, an increase in hardships of women, delays in the education sector, hurting the social security, putting the IDPs in harm’s way and people of the rural areas at high risk of infection, reducing income, generating joblessness, shrinking the global trade, causing food scarcity, and prompting a sharp drop in the tourism industry. Hence, ASEAN member states need an enhancement in their respective healthcare undertakings, an effective programme to fulfil the needs and guarantee rights of the per-sons who are facing socio-economic losses, the adoption of long-term remedial measures and policies, and the partici-pation of the armed forces of the relevant countries in the functions of the Covid-19 response teams and committees to alleviate the consequences of the global pandemic and to prevent and control the virus. In accord with the theme of the meeting “We Care, We Prepare, We Prosper” ASEAN countries must foresee all conventional and unconventional challenges and must have a careful analysis of them, must make preparatory measure to collectively overcome them, and must share the results achieved through the collective efforts as they are mustdo programmes. The meeting then discussed the paper on ASEAN Military Exercise (AMX), ap-proved the Two Year Working Plan (2021-2023) of the ASEAN armed forces, held final discussions on the joint statement of the ACDFM-18 and approve it. Then the chair of the ACD-FM-18, the commander of the Royal Brunei Armed Forces, gave the closing speech and transferred the alternate chairmanship duty to the com-mander-in-chief of the Royal Armed Forces of Cambodia, who gave the acceptance speech. The meeting then came to a successful conclu-sion. MNA #TheGlobalNewLightOfMyanmar