"Timor-Leste, Southeast Asia's smallest economy, is now ASEAN's newest member. On Oct 26, the regional body voted in the island nation as its eleventh member at the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur. Timor-Leste first applied for membership in 2011, just under a decade after it won formal independence from Indonesia, its much larger neighbor. Timor-Leste, also known as East Timor, is ASEAN's first new member since 1999, when the bloc welcomed Cambodia into the group."
""Timor-Leste has struggled with securing investments, due to the country's instability and associated risks," says Norashiqin Toh, a post-doctoral fellow at Tsinghua University's Institute for Advanced Study in Humanities and Social Sciences. "Becoming a member of ASEAN will likely send a credible signal to international investors of the country's political stability, and also attract further investments from businesses in other ASEAN member states.""
Timor-Leste became ASEAN's eleventh member on Oct 26, joining as Southeast Asia's smallest economy. The country first applied for membership in 2011, about a decade after gaining formal independence from Indonesia in 2002. Persistent political instability and associated risks hindered investment, and ASEAN membership is expected to signal greater political stability and attract international and regional investors. ASEAN was founded in 1967 and expanded from five founding members to include Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Brunei and Myanmar. Timor-Leste experienced centuries of Portuguese colonization, a violent Indonesian occupation, and a 1999 UN-sponsored referendum on independence.
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