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.
