by Li Xiaoyu

    JAKARTA, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- The much-awaited Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Charter has been fully ratified and officially entered into force, indicating ASEAN's resolve to transform the geographical bloc of 10 countries and half a billion people into a stronger, more united and effective regional bloc.

    "This is a momentous development when the ASEAN is consolidating, integrating and transforming itself into a community," Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said after the charter came into force on Monday, adding that the implementation of the charter "is achieved while the ASEAN seeks amore vigorous role in Asian and global affairs."

    Yudhoyono said this is the beginning of the transformation of South-East Asia from a bitterly-divided, war-torn region into the "highest possible level of political, economic and social dynamism."

    The ASEAN charter is expected to provide the ASEAN with a legal framework after 40 years of gradual institutionalization, which establishes a set of rules and structures that should strengthen the bloc and establish the formal roles of ASEAN communities, including the Security Community, the Economic Community and the Socio-Cultural Community.

    Established in 1967 by five original member countries, the ASEAN was aiming at accelerating economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the region, promoting regional peace and stability through abiding by respect for justice and the rule of law in the relationship among countries in the region, and adhering to the principles of the United Nations Charter.

    The ASEAN has been striving for the leadership in the cooperation in the East Asian region, but always hampered by its own weakness and other outside difficulties. Thus, the organization expected to prove its capability and promote its leading capacity through the formalization of the ASEAN Charter, which will become ASEAN's legal umbrella and envisages a single free trade area by 2015 for the region with some 500 million people.

    As a legal unit, the ASEAN can further expand its ASEAN Community program and enhance its structure, so that it will be closer to become an organization as the European Union (EU).