Nusa Dua, Bali (ANTARA News) - ASEAN leaders are to hold their 9th summit with India on Saturday discussing joint efforts to narrow development gap among ASEAN member countries.

The ASEAN heads of state/government at the summit with Indian Prime Minister Mahmohan Singh would discuss ways to step up ASEAN-India cooperation in various fields, a Foreign Ministry press release said.

Scheduled to last one hour at the Bali International Convention Center (BICC), the meeting would touch on a wide range of issues,

including cooperation related to connectivity, inter-individual relations, trade and economic relations.

Other issues to be discussed in the ASEAN-India summit are ways to step up cooperation in disaster management and emergency response reaction, efforts to fight transnational crime and non-traditional security issues, as well as and food and energy security.

The ASEAN leaders and the Indian prime minister in the summit will also exchange views on the 20th anniversary of ASEAN-India dialog in New Delhi.

They will also review the application of the 2010-2015 plan of action and the progress that has been made by the ASEAN-India Eminent Persons Group to decide the direction of ASEAN-India cooperation.

The 9th ASEAN-India summit will be attended by Indian Prime Minister Mahmohan Singh and the ten ASEAN leaders namely President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei Darussalam, Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung of Vietnam, Prime Minister Thingsing Thammavong of Laos, Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia, Prime Minister Thien Sein of Myanmar, President Aquino III of the Philippines, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Long of Singapore, and Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra of Thailand.(*)

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Editor: Jafar M Sidik
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