A low-key meeting in 1991 gave rise to the ASEAN Free Trade Area
To this day, when Thai schoolchildren learn by rote the main achievements of their past prime ministers, they are taught that Anand Panyarachun was responsible for the creation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ Free Trade Area (AFTA). What this might mean to them is unclear, but its echoes are still being felt.
Dominic Faulder