The annual summit of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) wrapped up Friday in Hanoi with a number of agreements on economic integration, according to dpa. But the 10-member group made little progress on the vexing issues of elections in Myanmar and territorial disputes in the South China Sea. The meeting was also overshadowed by the ongoing anti-government protests in Bangkok, which prompted Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to cancel his participation at the summit at the last minute. On the economic front, finance ministers met in the Vietnamese resort city of Nha Trang Thursday and agreed to move forward on a 120-billion-dollar credit facility to stabilize countries in the region that run into macroeconomic trouble. Known as the Chiang Mai Initiative since it was established in 2000, the fund is envisioned as a sort of regional version of the International Monetary Fund and includes China, Japan and South Korea as well as the 10 ASEAN countries. Ministers also said they were "cognizant" of the risks of recent large inflows of capital to the region and would take measures to ensure the region's economies, expected to grow 4.9 to 5.6 per cent this year, do not overheat. In Hanoi, meanwhile, the nine heads of state who attended the summit signed a "dispute resolution protocol," which would allow the group to make decisions in cases in which one or more member states disagree. ASEAN - whose members are Brunei, Myanmar, Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam - has historically operated on a consensus basis, which has earned the group a reputation for being tentative and ineffective. Leaders also resolved to spend more on infrastructure to connect regional economies and issued a joint statement on climate change, calling for a "binding global agreement" on greenhouse gas emissions - albeit one whose burdens would fall mainly on wealthy Western countries. But little was done on the key question of how ASEAN would address member state Myanmar's poor human rights record and its ruling military junta's manipulation of the country's elections process. The junta has promised to hold general elections this year, but laws introduced in March have barred political prisoners, including opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, from running. Her party, the National League for Democracy, has said in response that it would boycott the elections. Early in the summit, host nation Vietnam, which has increasingly close relations with Myanmar, said the issue of the elections was not on the agenda. But democratic member states - including Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines - insisted on bringing them up. At a press conference Friday, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, in his capacity as ASEAN summit chair, said the group believed the Myanmar elections should include "all parties." Meanwhile, Vietnam's top priority for the meeting - getting ASEAN to negotiate as a bloc over territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea - remained elusive. Conflicts over territorial claims in the resource-rich sea have become increasingly tense over the past year with China seizing a number of Vietnamese fishing boats. Vietnam has pressed for ASEAN members to negotiate collectively while China has insisted on bilateral negotiations. The final statement issued by ASEAN leaders at the summit's conclusion made no mention of the South China Sea disputes. The only action on the issue came Thursday when Dung held a one-on-one meeting with Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Arroyo reportedly asked for the meeting to raise Philippine objections to a joint Vietnamese-Malaysian declaration of their territorial claims last May. In further economic issues, the group resolved to implement already-reached agreements on reducing customs barriers. ASEAN has declared its intention to form a South-East Asian Economic Community, modeled on the European Community, by 2015.
