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New Zealand has been an Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Dialogue Partner for over 30-years.
Asia is an important focus of New Zealand’s foreign policy and ASEAN helps to broaden and strengthen our relationships in the region especially in shared interests such as economic growth, trade, education, people-to-people links and broader issues such as the environment and energy.
ASEAN is grouping a of 10 South East Asian countries: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Viet Nam. It was established in 1967 with the aim of accelerating regional economic growth, peace and stability and cultural development.
New Zealand became ASEAN’s third Dialogue Partner in 1975 when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade opened an Embassy in Manila – achieving representation in the capitals of each of the ASEAN founding member countries.
The other ASEAN Dialogue Partners are Australia, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United States.
In 2006 New Zealand agreed on a framework for New Zealand-ASEAN cooperation covering a wide range of areas of collaboration, including our development cooperation relationship. This framework provides a platform to further and grow New Zealand’s long standing relationship with ASEAN.
Another focus of the relationship is economic and trade relations. Negotiations towards a free trade agreement between New Zealand, Australia and ASEAN are progressing, with the fifteenth round held in July 2008.
ASEAN holds regular Ministerial and senior officials meetings which are attended by New Zealand.
This month the ASEAN Post Ministerial Conference and ASEAN Regional Forum Ministerial meeting are being held in Singapore, along with the South West Pacific Dialogue.
