Asean

       ASEAN stands for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, an organization that was founded on 8 August 1967 in Bangkok, Thailand. Its original charter counted five member-countries: Indonesia, Malaysia,
the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Since then, five other nations have joined: Brunei in 1984, Vietnam in 1995, Myanmar (Burma) and Laos in 1997, and Cambodia in 1999.



            The member-countries are sprawled over an area of 1.74 million square miles (4.5 million square kilometers) with a combined population of 500 million people. Their annual gross domestic product is almost $700 billion US Dollars (USD), with a total trade of around $850 billion USD. The ASEAN was set up to advance mutual interests in the region, including the acceleration ofeconomic growth, social and cultural progress, and regional peace and stability. In line with those goals, the organization's leaders set up three "pillars" of governance in 2003: ASEAN Security, ASEAN Economic Community, and ASEAN Socio-cultural Community. At present, the group's foremost economic concern is to make the region a competitive force on the global stage. It proposes to do this by launching the region as a single market production base, resulting in the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA). The AFTA ensures that tariffand non-tariff barriers among member countries are eliminated, hopefully resulting in greater economic productivity.