Wednesday 8 August 2007

40 Years of ASEAN - Malaysia Perspective

On 8 August 1967, five Southeast Asia countries namely Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines signed Bangkok Declaration. It was the moment a new regional organization was born. This new organization is called ASEAN, an abbreviation of Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Since its formation, the number of member countries of ASEAN have been increased from five to six and then to currently ten. The present member countries consist of the founders of five together with Brunei, Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. To show the importance of ASEAN to Malaysia, Pos Malaysia issued stamps to commemorate the anniversaries of ASEAN in 1977 (10thanniversary), 1982 (15th anniversary), 1987 (20thanniversary), 1992 (25th anniversary), 1997 (30thanniversary) and the latest 2007 (40th anniversary).

10th anniversary (five member countries); Date ofissue: 8 August 1977

15th anniversary (five member countries); Date ofissue: 8 August 1982


20th anniversary (six member countries); Date ofissue: 14 December 1987

25th anniversary (six member countries); Date ofissue: 8 August 1992

30th anniversary (ten member countries); Date ofissue: 8 August 1997


40th anniversary (ten member countries); Date ofissue: 8 August 2007