LEAD: ASEAN leaders agree to hold 1st E. Asian summit next year

Asian Economic News, Dec 13, 2004

VIENTIANE, Nov. 29 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING)

Southeast Asian leaders have backed a proposal to hold the first East Asian summit next year in Kuala Lumpur, which would include the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as well as China, Japan and South Korea, official sources said Monday.

The ASEAN leaders reached the agreement during their annual summit, held this year in the Lao capital.

The leaders managed to overcome Indonesia's initial resistance to holding such a summit as early as next year by assuring that it would be arranged so as not to reduce ASEAN's role as the driving force.

Malaysia had offered to host the summit back-to-back with the annual ASEAN summit. But Indonesia, wary that an East Asian summit would dilute ASEAN's leading role in the existing ASEAN-plus-three summit, had urged ASEAN to study the idea more thoroughly.

The ASEAN-plus-three summit has been convened annually since the 1997 Asian financial crisis prompted countries in the region to work more closely with each other.

The ASEAN leaders also signed plans to implement measures for greater integration in Southeast Asia, including the Vientiane Action Program, a six-year master plan intended to help ASEAN achieve its goal of an ASEAN Community by 2020.

The three-pillared ASEAN Community would be comprised of an ASEAN Security Community, an ASEAN Economic Community and an ASEAN Social and Cultural Community.

The leaders, who began their meeting Sunday evening with a dinner, have also discussed the counterterrorism measures and regional issues, including recent political developments in Myanmar, ASEAN officials said.

But they did not discuss the Thai government's rough handling of protests in its restive Muslim-dominated southern region, apparently due to strong resistance from Thailand, the officials said.

ASEAN economic ministers on Monday signed pacts to accelerate the liberalization of nine priority sectors for goods by 2007 and two sectors for services by 2010.

The meeting in the capital of Laos, one of ASEAN's poorest member countries, saw a gathering of several new leaders in the region -- Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Myanmar Prime Minister Gen. Soe Win -- all of whom came to power over the last 12 months.

ASEAN officials said Yudhoyono may try to reassert Indonesia's leadership role in ASEAN, which has been reduced since the downfall of then President Suharto in 1998.

The leadership changes in ASEAN in recent years have seen the departure of the region's most high-profile figures, such as former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who retired as prime minister late last year, former Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, who stepped down in July this year, and Myanmar Prime Minister Gen. Khin Nyunt, who was ousted last month.

The leaders were welcomed earlier Monday by hundreds of teenage Lao students dressed in colorful Lao national costumes and waving small flags along the road leading to the entrance of the Lao International Trade Exhibition and Convention Center, which was constructed for the summit.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.