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The first ever East Asia Summit, represented by countries including India, on Wednesday decided to meet annually along with the ASEAN Summit to foster strategic dialogue among the 16 members, promote cooperation in security and political issues, besides economic integration.
In a draft declaration to be adopted later at the one-day summit today, the member countries said that they would promote development, financial stability, energy security, economic integration and growth in East Asia to narrow the development gap through technology transfer and removing infrastructure bottlenecks.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is representing India at the summit which is being attended by heads of government of the ten Association of South East Asian Nations members and China, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia.
The members unanimously agreed that the annual East Asia Summit would promote community building in this region which will be consistent with and reinforce the realisation of the ASEAN community and will form an integral part of evolving regional architecture.
The East Asia annual summit, which will be chaired by the ASEAN chairperson, will be "an open, inclusive, transparent and outward-looking forum in which global norms and universally recognised values with ASEAN as the driving force working in partnership with other participants of the East Asia summit," the draft declaration said.
Apart from narrowing the development gap in East Asia through technology transfer and infrastructure development, the 16-member nations said they would strive to promote capacity building, good governance and humanitarian assistance besides boosting financial links, trade and investment expansion and liberalisation.
The draft declaration said the East Asia summit would focus on "fostering strategic dialogue and promoting cooperation in political and security issues to ensure that our countries can live at peace with one another and with the world at large in a just, democratic and harmonious environment."
The members also agreed to focus on promoting deeper cultural understanding, people-to-people contact and enhanced cooperation to uplift the lives and well being of the people to foster mutual trust and solidarity as well as promoting fields such as environmental protection, prevention of infectious diseases and natural disaster mitigation.
The members agreed that participation in the East Asia Summit would be based on the criteria for participation decided by ASEAN.
The modalities of the East Asia Summit would be reviewed by ASEAN and all other participating countries of the East Asia Summit.
The summit members acknowledged that in a rapidly changing international environment, "our economies and socieites have become increasingly interlinked and interdependent." They all shared the view that East Asia Summit could play a significant role in community building in the region.