ASSOCIATED PRESS

Asean leaders yesterday approved Malaysia's long-held dream of hosting a summit of East Asian countries, seen as an important step towards creating a strong Asia trading bloc.

Overcoming initial objections by Indonesia, Asean leaders decided to let Malaysia host the first East Asia Summit next year, according to a summit statement. It will draw the 10 members of Asean and China, Japan and South Korea.

The 13 countries already meet every year during the annual Asean meetings as "Asean plus three", but former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad has long championed the additional summit as a springboard for a trade bloc to rival the European Union and North America.

The statement yesterday said the Asean-plus-three meetings would be transformed into the East Asia Summit, likely to be held in December next year.

Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi said a consensus was reached after Indonesia had relented.

Indonesia had argued that the additional meeting would be cosmetic and wanted any new summit to include Australia, New Zealand and India, but that was opposed by Malaysia, which has uneasy relations with Australia.

"We would not be too impressed if an East Asia summit was simply an Asean-plus-three summit with a new label," Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa said.

Some Asean members are concerned it would become a junior partner to an East Asia bloc, subsumed by the mighty economies of China, Japan and South Korea.

"We have to be careful in not diluting Asean but so many countries have been keen on having the [East Asia] summit," Mr Natalegawa said.