ASEAN and Canada will hold a summit in September to commemorate Canada’s new status as a strategic dialogue partner of ASEAN, according to an informed source.

After a long delay, Canada will finally become the bloc’s latest strategic partner. Currently ASEAN has five suchpartners, including New Zealand, Japan, the EU, South Koreaand Russia. China, Australia, the US and India are the four comprehensive strategic partners of ASEAN. The UK became a dialogue partner of ASEAN in 2021 under Brunei Darussalam’s chairmanship.

Last year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attended the first ASEAN-Canada summit to commemorate its 45th anniversary in Phnom Penh.

The bloc has several categories of relations with its dialogue partners. Norway and Pakistan are sectoral dialogue partners,while Germany and Chile are development dialogue partners. They are ranked according to the intensity and substance of interactions and benefits to ASEAN.

ASEAN established ties with Canada in 1977, with cooperation on political and security issues, regional integration, economic interests, inter-faith dialogue, transnational crime, counterterrorism, disaster risk reduction and other areas.

In 2009, the two sides adopted the Joint Declaration on the ASEAN-Canada Enhanced Partnership, with the signing of the Canada-ASEAN Joint Declaration on Trade and Investment in 2011 to enhance their economic partnership.

Canada appointed an ambassador to ASEAN in 2016. Canada has diplomatic representation in all 10 ASEAN member countries.