Asia

The Southeast Asian region is composed of 11 countries, the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Timor-Leste, which achieved independence in 2002. ASEAN was founded in 1967 with the objectives of economic growth and intraregional peace, its founding member nations being Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. In 1984, Brunei joined the ASEAN-6. The CMLV countries of Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam joined it as the later-joining countries.

The ASEAN region is moving forward on intraregional market unification based on the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) agreement of 1992. At the 13th ASEAN Summit in November 2007, the ASEAN Charter was adopted as the supreme law of ASEAN. Additionally, the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint was adopted, setting out the process to achieve an ASEAN Economic Community by 2015, making a major step toward formation.

However, while the founding ASEAN nations have achieved a certain level of development, the later-joining countries are lagging behind them. Regional economic development and intraregional disparity correction are problems to achieve before unification of the ASEAN region.

Since the end of World War II, Japan has emphasized Asia as a pillar of its diplomatic policy. Southeast Asia and Japan are closely related in a variety of ways, and in particular, they have a strong economic interdependence as Japan is the largest economic partner of the region.

Since the People's Republic of China instituted its reform and open-door policies at the end of the 1970s, Japan has provided assistance to further those policies, and has contributed to China's remarkable economic development for more than twenty years. With the rapid economic development and changes in China's economic structure, the needs for assistance there have changed, and moreover, the economic and financial circumstances in Japan have increased the focus on the effectiveness and efficiency of assistance. As a result, Japan stopped providing new Japanese ODA loans for China in fiscal 2008.

Meanwhile, the economy in Mongol has been in disorder since the dismantling of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) in 1991. A powerful economic stabilization policy and assistance from foreign countries, mainly Japan, has gradually stabilized the situation since 1995.

As a central part of the Silk Road that ties together Asia and Europe, the Central Asian and Caucasus region has been an area through which people and goods have moved since ancient times mainly for trade. Today, the region encompasses eight countries and has more than 15 years of independence since the breakup of the Soviet Union. The direction and pace of development in the region varies depending on the county, with some having undergone extensive market economy transitions, some remaining poverty stricken and their political and economic systems remaining closed, and still others having experienced changes of government through democratic revolution.

The region is blessed with abundant natural resources including oil and gas on the shores of the Caspian Sea and rare metals such as uranium. Given this background, the international community has watched the region with interest in recent years, and the redevelopment of roads and rail as well as the laying of a new pipeline has begun.

The life outside of the major cities is harsh, and the critical problems of reducing poverty and fighting unemployment remain unsolved. As each country establishes itself as an independent nation, there is an increasing need for progress in intraregional cooperation in regionally shared issues such as democratization and establishing a structure suitable for a market economy, and issues that exceed national borders such as the traffic and transportation infrastructure.

Encompassing a population of some 1.5 billion people, the Southwest Asian region includes about 500 million people living in poverty, the second highest ratio in the world after sub-Sahara Africa. Development lags in areas such as health and education, and the gender disparity remains unchanged. The region has a wide variety of ethnicities, religions and languages, however, it is unstable politically and socially and includes conflict areas.

Since 2003 when the tense relations between India and Pakistan relaxed, economic activities in the Southwest Asian countries have intensified. The economies are in relatively strong shape, with India showing its remarkable economic growth in recent years as an exemplar. Such positive economic factors are expected to lead to regional stability, though a number of destabilizing political factors will remain.