The ASEAN-US Business Forum that is to kick off Friday evening here attracted the largest ever number of American business executives to seek business opportunities in thes Southeast Asian countries.

The ASEAN-US Business Forum will bring together hundreds of cabinet ministers and senior policymakers from the US and ASEAN governments, as well as business leaders from the US and ASEAN, to address the opportunities and challenges that will define the direction of future US-ASEAN economic cooperation, said a joint press release from the organizers, the US-ASEAN Business Council and the US Chamber of Commerce.

The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, Myanmar President Thein Sein, and Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra will attend the forum, said the press release.

"The forum will be an opportunity for US business leaders to strength economic ties with ASEAN and seek future economic cooperation between the US and ASEAN," it said.

US businesspeople have begun to look into ASEAN business potentials after the Obama administration has elevated the US engagement across Asia as a strategic priority of its foreign policy.

"A central pillar of that strategy is to work more closely with ASEAN, to deepen our economic, strategic, and people-to- people engagement," Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday in the fourth ASEAN-US Post-Ministerial Conference in Phnom Penh.

"The forum will be the largest ever delegation of American business executives to Cambodia, and it will be the first US- ASEAN Business Forum to lay the groundwork for economic connections and mutual prosperity for a long time to come," she said. "On the economic front, there is much more room for us still to grow together, so we are working to foster more economic activity in very tangible ways."

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.