42nd ASEAN Summit will be held in Indonesia

The 42nd Summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has kicked off in Indonesia with a theme of “ASEAN Affairs: Epicenter of Growth.”
The summit aims to demonstrate the bloc’s hopes and efforts to become the center and driving force behind global development.
President Joko Widodo, who holds the presidency of the bloc, emphasized the enormous potential of the ASEAN region, which has a total population of around 650 million inhabitants and consistently outperforms the world average in terms of economic growth.
He called on member countries to unite in terms of production power to make Southeast Asia the center of global growth.
Timor-Leste will be the last Southeast Asian country to join the organization at the summit. The Prime Minister of Timor-Leste, Taur Matan Ruak will personally attend the summit.
The first ASEAN summit was held in February 1976 in Bali, Indonesia. The 40th and 41st ASEAN Summits were held on 11 November 2022 in Phnom Penh, under the chairmanship of the Kingdom of Cambodia.