South-East Asia and Europe: The New Partnership

South East Asia is a dynamic actor in global trade. It is a region of great diversity in terms of cultures, peoples, languages and religions. Its level of wealth however, very much differs from a country to another: the GDP per capita of Singapore is ¯23.000 whereas that of Laos is ¯340. Europe and South East Asia share many common interests and the European Commission has defined a new strategy for reinforcing its relations with this region.