 In March 1996, 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.The main tasks of ASEF are to bring the civil societies of Asia and Europe together and to become an interface between civil society and governments by facilitating interactions among people from diverse fields and transmitting the resulting outputs as recommendations to policy-makers.