List of sovereign states and dependent territories in Asia

Asian Street Food, Fast Food Streets in Asia, Phnom Penh Street food VDO #70

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Phnom Penh is the Capital of Cambodia, which is a member state of ASEAN. ASEAN = Association of Southeast Asian Nations ASEAN is a political and economic organisation of ten Southeast Asian countries. It was formed on 8 August 1967 by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Since then, membership has expanded to include Brunei,Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), and Vietnam. Its aims include accelerating economic growth, social progress, and socio-cultural evolution among its members, protection of regional peace and stability, and opportunities for member countries to resolve differences peacefully. ASEAN covers a land area of 4.4 million square kilometres, 3% of the total land area of the Earth. ASEAN territorial waters cover an area about three times larger than its land counterpart. The member countries have a combined population of approximately 625 million people, 8.8% of the world's population. In 2015, the organisation's combined nominal GDP had grown to more than US$2.6 trillion. If ASEAN were a single entity, it would rank as the seventh largest economy in the world, behind the US, China, Japan, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. Purpose As set out in the ASEAN Declaration, the aims and purposes of ASEAN are: - To accelerate economic growth, social progress, and cultural development in the region - To promote regional peace and stability - To promote collaboration and mutual assistance on matters of common interest - To provide assistance to each other in the form of training and research facilities - To collaborate for the better utilisation of agriculture and industry to raise the living standards of the people - To promote Southeast Asian studies - To maintain close, beneficial co-operation with existing international organisations with similar aims and purposes History Foundation ASEAN was prefigured by an organisation called the Association of Southeast Asia (ASA), a group consisting of the Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand that was formed in 1961. ASEAN itself was inaugurated on 8 August 1967, when foreign ministers of five countries; Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, signed the ASEAN Declaration, more commonly known as the Bangkok Declaration. The creation of ASEAN was motivated by a common fear of communism, and a thirst for economic development. ASEAN grew when Brunei Darussalam became its sixth member on 7 January 1984, barely a week after gaining independence. Expansion and further integration ASEAN achieved greater cohesion in the mid-1970s following the changed balance of power in Southeast Asia after the end of the Vietnam War. The region’s dynamic economic growth during the 1970s strengthened the organisation, enabling ASEAN to adopt a unified response to Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia in 1979. ASEAN's first summit meeting, held in Bali, Indonesia, in 1976, resulted in an agreement on several industrial projects and the signing of a Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, and a Declaration of Concord. The end of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s allowed ASEAN countries to exercise greater political independence in the region, and in the 1990s ASEAN emerged as a leading voice on regional trade and security issues. On 28 July 1995, Vietnam became ASEAN's seventh member. Laos and Myanmar (Burma) joined two years later on 23 July 1997. Cambodia was to have joined together with Laos and Burma, but entry was delayed due to the country's internal political struggle. The country later joined on 30 April 1999, following the stabilisation of its government. In 1990, Malaysia proposed the creation of an East Asia Economic Caucus composed of the members of ASEAN as well as the People's Republic of China, Japan, and South Korea, with the intention of counterbalancing the growing influence of the United States in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), and in the Asian region as a whole. The proposal failed, however, because of heavy opposition from the US and Japan. Member states continued to work for further integration and ASEAN Plus Three was created in 1997. In 1992, the Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT) scheme was adopted as a schedule for phasing out tariffs, and as a goal to increase the "region's competitive advantage as a production base geared for the world market". This law would act as the framework for the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA). AFTA is an agreement by member nations concerning local manufacturing in ASEAN countries. The AFTA agreement was signed on 28 January 1992 in Singapore. More reading at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Southeast_Asian_Nations