MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines has the second biggest population – next to Indonesia – among countries belonging to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Based on data from the 3rd ASEAN Connectivity Forum held last week in Seoul, the Philippines’ population stood at 101.6 million as of August as against Indonesia’s 248 million.
Indonesia has a land area of 1.8 million square kilometers while the Philippines has 300,000 square kilometers divided among three major archipelagic regions – Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.
ASEAN-South Korea records likewise show that the Philippines has $240.7 billion in gross domestic product while Indonesia has $894.9 billion.
Vietnam has the third biggest population with 89.7 million, followed by Thailand with 68.2 million and Myanmar (61.5 million).
Malaysia is sixth with 29.9 million citizens living in a 330,290 square kilometer land area. Landlocked Cambodia and Lao ranked seventh and eighth – 14.9 million and 6.6 million, respectively.
The island-state of Singapore ranked ninth with 5.4 million people; while tiny Brunei only has 400,000 people.
Singapore – which is just 716 square kilometers, or just as big as Metro Manila – has a GDP of $267.9 billion. Kuala Lumpur has $307.2 billion GDP while Bangkok has $377 billion.
The details about the population of each ASEAN country were contained in the press kit the ASEAN-ROK forum gave to journalists. The STAR updated the data on the Philippines.
South Korea, which sponsored the ASEAN connectivity forum, said its vision was “to be a key player in building a lasting and genuine partnership between ASEAN and Korea,” and where mandates include “increasing trade volume, accelerate investment flow, invigorate tourism and enrich cultural and people-to-people exchange.”
“The ASEAN-Korea Centre was established as an intergovernmental organization with the aim to promote exchanges among Korea and the 10 Asean member states. It was officially inaugurated in March 2009,” a portion of the press kit read.