Association of Southeast Asian Nations
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN /ˈɑːsi.ɑːn/ AH-see-ahn,/ˈɑːzi.ɑːn/ AH-zee-ahn) is a political and economic organization 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 sociocultural evolution among its members alongside protection of regional stability and opportunities for member countries to resolve differences peacefully.
ASEAN covers a land area of 4.4 million square kilometers, 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.
ASEAN (cable system)
The ASEAN cable system was a submarine telecommunications cable system linking Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines. It was completed in September 1983, but has since been decommissioned.
Construction
Construction was split into four sections. The first section, a 1,534 nmi (2,841 km) cable, was laid in 1978 with landing points at Currimao, Ilocos Norte in the Philippines and Katong, Singapore. The second section, laid in 1980, was a 572 nm cable from Ancol, Indonesia to Changi, Singapore. The third section, laid in 1983, was a 920 nm cable between Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. The final section laid was from Thailand to the Philippines.
Capacity
The cable carried 1380 circuits which were allocated on the basis of ownership shares in the whole project.
References
ASEAN Free Trade Area
The ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) is a trade bloc agreement by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations supporting local manufacturing in all ASEAN countries.
The AFTA agreement was signed on 28 January 1992 in Singapore. When the AFTA agreement was originally signed, ASEAN had six members, namely, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Vietnam joined in 1995, Laos and Myanmar in 1997 and Cambodia in 1999. AFTA now comprises the ten countries of ASEAN. All the four latecomers were required to sign the AFTA agreement to join ASEAN, but were given longer time frames in which to meet AFTA's tariff reduction obligations.
The primary goals of AFTA seek to:
The primary mechanism for achieving such goals is the Common Effective Preferential Tariff scheme, which established a phased schedule in 1992 with the goal to increase the region’s competitive advantage as a production base geared for the world market.