INDONESIA SUPPORTS INCREASING ASEM MEMBERSHIP

Jakarta, May 27 (ANTARA) - Indonesia supports a plan to add Australia and Russia to the membership of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) forum at the 8th ASEM summit in Brussels, Belgium, in October 2010.

According to the Indonesian embassy in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Wednesday Indonesia supports the Australian and Russian membership in the ASEM because Indonesia thinks that every country has positive values that could be contributed to the forum.

It said however that the modality for their membership still had to be formulated by ASEM senior officials before the implementation of the summit.

Indonesia's support for the plan was voiced by Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda at the 9th ASEM Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Hanoi, earlier this week.

In the meeting the ministers agreed that the global economy would revive in 2010, although it had now dropped due to the impact of the global crisis.
Therefore, efforts needed to be made to strengthen and increase the international trade and financial systems as well as existing international cooperation so that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGS) could be achieved on time, the embassy said.

Meanwhile, with regard to global challenges such as a possible H1N1 virus pandemic and climate change the meeting had appealed for joint efforts to deal with them.

The meeting also reiterated its support for the United Nations Framework on Climate Change Conference and the Kyoto Protocol and hailed the progress made at the Bali Conference in 2007.

The ASEM ministers at the meeting also reiterated the the need to increase dialogues between Asia and Europe in line with the existing ASEM framework, it said.