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The first ever East Asia Summit, in which India will be represented by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, would be a forum for dialogue on strategic, political and economic issues of common interest and concern and will promote peace and economic prosperity in the region, senior officials from India and the ASEAN grouping said.
However, the senior officials meeting ahead of the East Asia summit could not reach consensus on all the issues to be included in the draft declaration to be adopted by leaders from 16 countries on December 14, when the historic summit takes place.
Discussions on the inclusion of issues in the final declaration will continue tomorrow at the ministerial level talks ahead of the summit, in which India will be represented by Commerce Minister Kamal Nath.
The members of the summit are India, the ten-member ASEAN grouping, China, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand and Australia.
Meanwhile, the one-day senior officials meeting between India and ASEAN ended in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday.
According to a copy of the draft declaration obtained by PTI, the delegates declared that their efforts to promote community building in East Asia would be consistent with the ASEAN community.
The draft declaration also said the East Asia Summit members would promote development, financial stability, energy security, economic integration and poverty eradication.
It also talks about narrowing the development gap in East Asia through technology transfer and infrastructure development, capacity building, good governance and humanitarian assistance.