ARF MEMBER COUNTRIES DISCUSSING MARITIME SECURITY IN SURABAYA

Surabaya, East Java Province, Mar 5 (ANTARA) - Member countries of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) are attending a meeting on maritime security here on March 5 and 6, 2009.

The meeting is also being attended by representatives of the United States, Australia, the European Union as well as other non-ASEAN countries, M.T. Hamzah Thayeb, the foreign ministry's director general of Asia, Pacific and African affairs, said here on Thursday.
Such a forum was the first ever held and expected to yield agreements leading to better maritime security, Thayeb, a former Indonesian ambassador to Australia, said.
Maritime security has become crucial in trade routes and any maritime security problems could hamper trade, said Thayeb, who led the meeting.
The meeting's participants would exchange information and make coordination on maritime security, he said.
He reported that the piracy rate in the Malacca Strait had decreased after Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore carried out a coordinated patrol scheme in the strait.
"In the past, the number of piracies in the Malacca Strait was three times higher than those in Somalian waters, and we often got complaints from other countries. However, the criminal activity has now been significantly curbed and is even only one third of those in Somalia," he said.