The East Asia Summit (EAS) is a regional forum held annually by leaders of, initially, 16 countries in the East Asian, Southeast Asian, and South Asian regions, based on the ASEAN plus Six mechanism. India is a founding member of the East Asia Summit.
Current members of the East Asia Summit consist of 10 ASEAN nations, Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Russia and the US.
Names of 10 ASEAN member countries: Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, The Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, Brunei and Laos.
The concept of an East Asia Grouping was first promoted in 1991 by the then Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir bin Mohamad. The first summit was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on 14 December 2005.
EAS is an “open forum” for dialogue on strategic, political, and economic issues in order to promote peace, economic prosperity, and regional integration in East Asia.
Six priority areas of regional cooperation within the framework of the EAS:
Environment and Energy
Education
Finance
Global Health Issues and Pandemic Diseases
Natural Disaster Management
ASEAN Connectivity
The EAS membership represents around 54% of the world’s population, over 20% of global trade and accounts for 58% of global GDP.
The chair of ASEAN is also the chair of the EAS. The role of the ASEAN chair rotates annually between the ten ASEAN member states.
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