What is the main goal of Cambodia's economic integration?

Boosting economic growth and development

Which major trade agreement has Cambodia recently joined?

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)

Which international organization provides financial support and development assistance to Cambodia?

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

Which major trade bloc does Cambodia hope to join?

Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)

Cambodia economic integration

Economic integration Population and GDP of ASEAN Countries Population and GDP of ASEAN CountriesThe countries of ASEAN vary widely in population size and income level, yet nonetheless have achieved a high level of economic integration. ASEAN is considered to be one the developing world’s most successful regional economic cooperation zones. Unlike its primary counterparts in the developed world, the European Union (EU) and the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), ASEAN has followed a more gradual and flexible approach to integration, accommodating the diversity of its member states. ASEAN has prioritized trade liberalization, sustainable development, and attracting foreign investment over deepening political integration or adopting a common currency. ASEAN’s economic integration efforts began with the creation of the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) in 1992, which successfully reduced tariffs between ASEAN’s first six members (Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand) to 0–5 percent by 2002. Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia were required to sign the AFTA agreement upon joining ASEAN. Today tariffs between ASEAN countries are close to zero. In 2007 the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint was signed in Singapore with the goal of achieving four objectives by 2015: (1) create a single market and production base, (2) become a highly competitive economic region, (3) promote equitable economic development within the region, and (4) fully integrate the region into the global economy. The AEC was implemented in 2015, although approximately 20 percent of measures toward achieving a single market remain in progress and have been deferred to a new deadline of 2025. The ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership (AJCEP) was implemented in 2008, and the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA) was implemented in 2010. In 2020 ASEAN joined Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea in signing the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the largest trade agreement in history. Get Unlimited Access Try Britannica Premium for free and discover more. Significant challenges remain for ASEAN’s economic integration, including pervasive nontariff barriers, restrictive investment measures, and vast disparities in GDP per capita. Domestic issues such as political instability and corruption in member states exacerbate these challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic created severe economic disruption in sectors such as industrial production and tourism; nonetheless, ASEAN coordinated a regional response to align economic recovery strategies and maintain open trade routes. Ultimately, ASEAN has demonstrated an exemplary and ongoing commitment to strengthening cooperation and integration and maximizing the region’s economic potential.

ASEAN, international organization established by the governments of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand in 1967 to accelerate economic growth and promote peace and security in Southeast Asia. Brunei joined in 1984, followed by Vietnam in 1995, Laos and Myanmar in 1997, and Cambodia in 1999. East Timor has been granted observer status and is expected to become a full member in 2025. The ASEAN region has a population of more than 700 million, covers a total area of 1.7 million square miles (4.5 million square km), and had a combined gross domestic product of $3.62 trillion as of 2022. Since its establishment, ASEAN has substantially enhanced security and stability throughout Southeast Asia, while also promoting economic growth and cooperation on international issues. Yet certain regional issues remain divisive within ASEAN, such as Myanmar’s civil war, which has proved challenging for the bloc to address uniformly, and relations with China, particularly with regards to economic ties and territorial disputes in the South China Sea. ASEAN’s history ASEAN's 50th Summit ASEAN's 50th SummitDelegates from Southeast Asian nations gather at the 50th ASEAN Summit in Melbourne, March 2024. ASEAN’s origins can be traced back to earlier regional organizations such as the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), founded in 1954, and the Association of Southeast Asia (ASA), established in 1961. These early efforts, however, were limited in scope and membership. In 1967 ASEAN was established by Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore with the signing of the ASEAN Declaration in Bangkok. The initial aim was to encourage regional cooperation and create a collective front against the spread of communism in Asia, reflecting the geopolitical concerns of the era. Lee Kuan Yew Lee Kuan YewPrime Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore at the Third ASEAN Summit, 1987, in Manila. The organization gained a new level of cohesion in the mid-1970s following the Vietnam War. ASEAN’s first summit meeting, held in Bali, Indonesia, in 1976, resulted in several significant agreements, including the signing of the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation. The end of the Cold War and increased regional development and stability saw ASEAN expand its membership, incorporating Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia by the end of the 1990s. This period also marked a shift toward deeper economic integration, exemplified by the establishment of the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) in 1992 and the response to the 1997 Asian financial crisis with the Chiang Mai Agreement. The adoption of the ASEAN Charter in 2007 provided a legal and institutional framework defined by three core pillars: the ASEAN Economic Community, the ASEAN Political-Security Community, and the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community. This structure has helped promote increased cooperation and mutual understanding, despite enormous differences in the political structures, cultural backgrounds, and development levels of member states.

Linguistic composition Language patterns in Southeast Asia are highly complex and are rooted in four major language families: Sino-Tibetan, Tai, Austro-Asiatic, and Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian). Languages derived from the Sino-Tibetan group are found largely in Myanmar, while forms of the Tai group are spoken in Thailand and Laos. Austro-Asiatic languages are spoken in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. The languages of Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines are rooted in an Austronesian and Polynesian stock. Despite this broad generalization, it must be noted that innumerable separate languages as well as dialects are used in the region. This linguistic diversity is especially conspicuous in fragmented areas such as the Philippines and Indonesia and in highland and remote areas on the mainland, and it has been a retarding factor in national integration and development. Notable in this regard is Myanmar. Dominant languages do exist in most of the nations. Burmese and Thai are spoken by large groups of people in Myanmar and Thailand, respectively. Similarly, Khmer is the primary language in Cambodia, as is Vietnamese in Vietnam. Within the Philippines, Pilipino (Filipino) and English are the official languages, but Tagalog and Visayan also are important. Malay and Indonesian are, respectively, the official languages of Malaysia and Indonesia; these languages are quite similar and are mutually intelligible. Indonesian is a good example of a true national language and is spoken widely across the archipelago. Thus, unlike in Myanmar, language actually has been a unifying element in the country. Numerous languages also have been introduced into the region by immigrant populations. Perhaps most significant are the variety of dialects spoken by the Chinese communities in many Southeast Asian countries. The most commonly used are Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, and Teochew, reflecting the southern Chinese coastal origins of many of the immigrants. The largest concentration of Chinese speakers is in Singapore, where they constitute the majority population. Concentrations of ethnic Chinese also live in most of the larger urban areas of the region. Indian immigrants also are numerous and are associated with the economic development of several Southeast Asian nations. Their role as labourers on the rubber plantations of Malaysia is well known, and Tamil and Hindi speakers form significant minorities in the country. Indian communities also are scattered throughout the region and are especially conspicuous in Singapore and Myanmar.

Southeast Asia, vast region of Asia situated east of the Indian subcontinent and south of China. It consists of two dissimilar portions: a continental projection (commonly called mainland Southeast Asia) and a string of archipelagoes to the south and east of the mainland (insular Southeast Asia). Extending some 700 miles (1,100 km) southward from the mainland into insular Southeast Asia is the Malay Peninsula; this peninsula structurally is part of the mainland, but it also shares many ecological and cultural affinities with the surrounding islands and thus functions as a bridge between the two regions. Mainland Southeast Asia is divided into the countries of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Vietnam, and the small city-state of Singapore at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula; Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, which occupy the eastern portion of the mainland, often are collectively called the Indochinese Peninsula. Malaysia is both mainland and insular, with a western portion on the Malay Peninsula and an eastern part on the island of Borneo. Except for the small sultanate of Brunei (also on Borneo), the remainder of insular Southeast Asia consists of the archipelagic nations of Indonesia and the Philippines. Southeast Asia stretches some 4,000 miles at its greatest extent (roughly from northwest to southeast) and encompasses some 5,000,000 square miles (13,000,000 square km) of land and sea, of which about 1,736,000 square miles is land. Mount Hkakabo in northern Myanmar on the border with China, at 19,295 feet (5,881 meters), is the highest peak of mainland Southeast Asia. Although the modern nations of the region are sometimes thought of as being small, they are—with the exceptions of Singapore and Brunei—comparatively large. Indonesia, for example, is more than 3,000 miles from west to east (exceeding the west-east extent of the continental United States) and more than 1,000 miles from north to south; the area of Laos is only slightly smaller than that of the United Kingdom; and Myanmar is considerably larger than France. All of Southeast Asia falls within the tropical and subtropical climatic zones, and much of it receives considerable annual precipitation. It is subject to an extensive and regular monsoonal weather system (i.e., one in which the prevailing winds reverse direction every six months) that produces marked wet and dry periods in most of the region. Southeast Asia’s landscape is characterized by three intermingled physical elements: mountain ranges, plains and plateaus, and water in the form of both shallow seas and extensive drainage systems. Of these, the rivers probably have been of the greatest historical and cultural significance, for waterways have decisively shaped forms of settlement and agriculture, determined fundamental political and economic patterns, and helped define the nature of Southeast Asians’ worldview and distinctive cultural syncretism. It also has been of great importance that Southeast Asia, which is the most easily accessible tropical region in the world, lies strategically astride the sea passage between East Asia and the Middle Eastern–Mediterranean world. Within this broad outline, Southeast Asia is perhaps the most diverse region on Earth. The number of large and small ecological niches is more than matched by a staggering variety of economic, social, and cultural niches Southeast Asians have developed for themselves; hundreds of ethnic groups and languages have been identified. Under these circumstances, it often is difficult to keep in mind the region’s underlying unity, and it is understandable that Southeast Asia should so often be treated as a miscellaneous collection of cultures that simply do not quite fit anywhere else. Roofs of the Forbidden City, Beijing, China Britannica Quiz All About Asia Yet from ancient times Southeast Asia has been considered by its neighbors to be a region in its own right and not merely an extension of their own lands. The Chinese called it Nanyang and the Japanese Nan’yō, both names meaning “South Seas,” and South Asians used such terms as Suvarnabhūmi (Sanskrit: “Land of Gold”) to describe the area. Modern scholarship increasingly has yielded evidence of broad commonalities uniting the peoples of the region across time. Studies in historical linguistics, for example, have suggested that the vast majority of Southeast Asian languages—even many of those previously considered to have separate origins—either sprang from common roots or have been long and inseparably intertwined. Despite inevitable variation among societies, common views of gender, family structure, and social hierarchy and mobility may be discerned throughout mainland and insular Southeast Asia, and a broadly common commercial and cultural inheritance has continued to affect the entire region for several millennia. These and other commonalities have yet to produce a conscious or precise Southeast Asian identity, but they have given substance to the idea of Southeast Asia as a definable world region and have provided a framework for the comparative study of its components.

Economy of Southeast Asia Even prior to the penetration of European interests, Southeast Asia was a critical part of the world trading system. A wide range of commodities originated in the region, but especially important were such spices as pepper, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg. The spice trade initially was developed by Indian and Arab merchants, but it also brought Europeans to the region. First the Portuguese, then the Dutch, and finally the British and French became involved in this enterprise in various countries. The penetration of European commercial interests gradually evolved into annexation of territories, as traders lobbied for an extension of control to protect and expand their activities. As a result, the Dutch moved into Indonesia, the British into Malaya, and the French into Indochina. Europe’s interest and activity in the region was further enhanced by the opening of the Suez Canal, the development of telegraphic communications, the adoption of steam shipping, and the prospects for trade with China. In the case of Malaya, the gradual diffusion of British administration provided systems of law and order and of taxation and allowed for the gradual development of infrastructure, principally reliable transport systems. This environment attracted Chinese immigrants, and the growth of the tin mining industry soon followed. Later rubber plantations were established, which brought about still further immigration. Similar developments took place in Burma (Myanmar), Vietnam, and Indonesia. In Siam (Thailand) during the second half of the 19th century, a rapid expansion of Western enterprise occurred, though not by colonization. Both British and American firms began trading in the region. The impact of the Western activity was essentially to remove trade from what had been a Chinese monopoly and to emphasize the export of a single commodity, rice. Established indigenous textile and sugar-processing industries were replaced by imports, and the economy slowly became dependent on rice exports. The Philippines gradually developed a plantation farming system under Spanish and later American influence, although rice, sugar, and tobacco continued to be produced by small-scale growers and processed by Chinese enterprises until the mid-19th century. The incorporation of Southeast Asia into the world economy had a major impact on the distribution of the region’s economic development, and it created more uneven patterns of population growth and economic activity. It also brought about a stronger sense of class distinction and resulted in a larger discrepancy between the wealthy and poor. The worldwide economic depression of the 1930s severely affected the commercialized areas most dependent on the world economy. Unemployment rose, and the period produced the seeds of political change and activism that culminated in the independence of most of the region’s countries after World War II. Since the 1950s the economic development strategies of virtually all the capitalist Southeast Asian states have emphasized urban industrialization, while agricultural development generally has been viewed as subsidiary to industrial growth. These strategies have met with mixed success. Indeed, the trading pattern of the region by and large has continued to be one of producing and exporting raw materials and importing manufactured goods. Only Singapore has reached an advanced level of industrialization, in the process becoming one of the world’s great centers of industry and commerce. There is great disparity in development rates within the region, especially between the member and nonmember countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Those belonging to this grouping—Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand—generally have experienced significant economic development since the mid-1960s; the exception has been the Philippines, the economy of which has grown at a much slower rate. Development has been extremely slow or nonexistent in the non-ASEAN countries of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam, and these are among the poorest nations in the world.

Cambodia

Know hows about cambodia

Killing Fields of Cambodia

Related quizzes

Related quizzes