European colonisation of Southeast Asia tightening Turkish control and eventual shut down of the Eastern Mediterranean gateways into Asia first prompted Portuguese, and later Spanish and Dutch sea voyagers to ship around Africa in search of new trading routes and business opportunities. Niccolò de' Conti arrived in Southeast Asia as the earliest documented European in the early 15th century. By 1498 Vasco da Gama, who had sailed round the Cape of Good Hope, established the first direct sea route from Europe to India. Central among the various plannings was to establish direct and permanent trade of the highly priced spices, that were native to Southeast
Asia–Europe Foundation the leaders of 25 Asian and European countries as well as the European Commission, met in Bangkok, Thailand, for the 1st Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) Summit (ASEM1). At this inaugural meeting, they agreed on the establishment of the Asia–Europe Foundation (ASEF) on 15 February 1997 as a central institution of ASEM's social, cultural and educational pillar. One of the main tasks of ASEF is to become an interface between civil society groups and governments by facilitating interactions among people from diverse fields and transmitting the resulting outputs as recommendations to policy-makers. By nature, ASEF is different from other organisations, as it