ASEAN+10 Meeting Ends in Bangkok

The Association of Southeast Nations and its 10 dialogue partners closed their ASEAN+10 meeting Friday afternoon in Bangkok.

During the meeting, foreign ministers or representatives of ASEAN and the 10 dialogue partners mainly discussed economic issues, such as the new international financial system, East Asia recovery, impact of oil prices and the expansion of digital divide, Kobsak Chutikul, director-general of economic affairs department of Thai foreign ministry disclosed after the meeting.

At the meeting, participants urged for action on supervision of speculative activities of hedge fund, monitoring of short-cut fund flows, prevention of currency speculation, restructuring of multilateral institutions.

Discussing oil prices impact on the world economy, participants noted that high oil prices affect the developing countries, the stability of global economy and expansion of global trade, and the problem must be addressed in a reasonable manner.

They also talked about the impact of information technology, recognizing that it brings about both challenges and opportunities while agreeing that IT can help solve many problems though at the risk of dividing further the world between the connected and the unconnected.

Therefore, they stressed that the problem should be solved immediately before the gap widens into insurmountable obstacles.

Of the East Asian economy, they agreed that it is out of crisis and on the road of recovery, and they are confident that the region can again be the center of global economic growth.

However, they noted, the recovery has to be supported by continued reforms within the region and by continued market opening of the developed countries.

ASEAN+10 meeting followed the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) which was held here Thursday between ASEAN, its 10 dialogue partners and Papua New Guinea, Mongolia and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, a new member of ARF.

ASEAN dialogue partners now comprise Australia, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea and the United States.

After the ASEAN+10, ASEAN will hold separate sessions with each of the dialogue partners (ASEAN+10) on July 28 and 29 to examine the specific issues existing between them.



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