Kudos to Malaysia. Putrajaya has just finished hosting the 46th ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur over six days. Judging from the attendance, statements and declarations, the summit was a great success.

The Kuala Lumpur Declaration is a testimony of their continued commitment to regional co-operation.

Anwar Ibrahim has taken over the 2025 chairmanship with a goal to prioritise expanding trade and investment linkages. That is a daunting task but an important one. Today, intra-ASEAN FDI amounts to less than Japan’s foreign direct investment in Malaysia alone at US$30 billion. Intra- ASEAN trade, which measures the level of willingness to buy and sell products to each other, still hobbles around 22% to 26%.

Similarly, intra-ASEAN investment remains low, about 17%, approximately US$28 billion, of what the member states invest globally. Anwar has yet to enunciate his plans that require full consensus from all ASEAN member states. This legacy of arriving at decision-making through the process of consultation — an idea borrowed from customary practices in Indonesian culture — is worth defending so long as it does not make ASEAN into a mere talking shop.

The relevance of consensus, the hallmark of ASEAN’s esprit de corps, whose relevance in a fluid multilateral environment that demands agility in decision-making, has........

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