260. The ASEANWEB was officially launched at the Joint Ministerial Meeting, of the Fifth ASEAN Summit in Bangkok on Dec 12 1995. To ensure that the ASEANWEB would be easily accessible, entail minimal maintenenace and be self-sustaining, the Internet was chosen as the medium of dissemination. The Uniform resource Locator (URL) address of the ASEANWEB is http://www.aseansec.org.

261. The ASEANWEB consists of two main components: the ASEAN Secretariat homepage and the Member Countries’ homepage. The ASEAN Secretariat’s hompage, a hard copy of which is found on the next page, provides an ASEAN perspective on the areas of cooperation in which Member Countries’ are engaged. Hyper-text links here connect surfers to the homepages of the Membe Countries and vice versa. Member Countries’ homepages provide additional information on identified areas such as policies, opportunities, statistics and directories of services. Each homepage is maintained and kept up-to-date by its respective owner. The ASEAN Secretariat’s homepage houses eight icons, one for each of its sections. These are the Overview, Politics, Economics, Functional, General, ASEAN Summit, World Affairs and Web Sites.

262. The Overview carries a welcome message from the ASEAN Secretary-General, Dato’ Ajit Singh, a brief profile of each Member Country and progress reports in the areas of cooperation. The section on Politics highlights the ASEAN Regional Forum, past agreements, press releases and statements made by the ASEAN Foreign Ministers. For the moment, the economic portion covers the developments in the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA). Pertinent agreements, press releases by the AFTA Council and ASEAN Economic Ministers, explanatory notes, trade values and tariff reduction schedules are found here. Surfers are also linked to ech Member Country’s homepage so they can access Member Countries’ web servers for further details.

263. Past agreements, Plans of Actions, press releases made by the Sectoral Ministers are locatedinthe Functional Section. Data on Science and Technology, Enviroment, Culture and Information and Social Development are other details found here. The General section provides information on the Calendar of ASEAN Activities and ASEAN publications. The Fifth ASEAN Summit, including welcoming, opening and closing statements of the ASEAN Heads of State and Government are found in the ASEAN Secretariat homepage. Also located here, are the protocol and agreement signed by the ASEAN and Economic and Foreign Ministers and the 1995 Bangkok Summit Declaration bearing the signatures of the ASEAN Heads of State and Government.

264. The World Affairs Section features the international activities in which the ASEAN Members participate. This includes the Asia-Europe Meeting, the World Trade Organisation and the Mekog Basin Coperation initiative, to name a few. The homepage is also linked to other public and private web sites in ASEAN Member Countries.

265. On 1 March 1996, the ASEAN Secretariat installed a counting device to keep track of the number of surfers who browse through the web site. As of 5.00 pm, 9 July 1996, the numner of surfers stood at 6,807. A brochure to promote the ASEANWEB is also being prepared. In addition, the ASEAN Secretariat has registered the ASEANWEB with Yahoo, Infoseek and Internet Yellow Pages for listing in their respective directories.

266. At their fourth conference in Singapore in March 1996, the ASEAN Information Ministers agreed to the proposal that the ASEAN Secretariat be established as a regional information centre. To this end, they requested that the Secretariat, widen the scope of information provided by the ASEANWEB at that time to include funtional cooperation activities. This has since been done. The ASEAN Secretariat is now looking into linking the ASEAN News exchange through the Internet.