It comes just over a week after the Group of 20 developed and emerging economies agreed at a key meeting in London to commit one trillion dollars to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other global bodies.

“We will discuss what we can achieve from the G20 Summit,” said Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who attended the London conference as an observer because his country holds the rotating chairmanship of ASEAN.

The Pattaya summit will be followed by a so-called Global Dialogue in the Thai capital, Bangkok, Sunday featuring United Nations Secretary General Ban KiMoon and the chiefs of the IMF, World Bank and World Trade Organization.

The G20 summit pledged a huge raft of new spending and a crackdown on tax havens and excess corporate pay to battle the economic slowdown sweeping the globe.

Asia is feeling the pinch from the crisis, with the Asian Development Bank forecasting recently that growth in the region’s developing nations will almost halve this year.

ASEAN consists of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Source: AFP