ASEAN INFORMATION MINISTERS ATTEND 10TH AMRI MEETING

From Zulkefli Salleh

VIENTIANE, Nov 5 (Bernama) -- Asean ministers of information gathered here Thursday to strengthen cooperation in information and media in the quest to build an Asean Community by 2015.

The 10th meeting of Asean Ministers Responsible for Information (Amri) will
be followed by an inaugural conference of Amri with their counterparts from
China, Japan and Korea (Amri + 3) Friday.

Themed "Enhancing media cooperation in building Asean Community", the Amri
conference is expected to take further steps towards building a more cooperative
and cohesive network in media cooperation as the grouping races against time to
realise the dream of making the Asean Community a reality in five years.

Senior officials at their meeting preceeding the conferences reviewed the
progress of various activities under the Asean and Asean Plus Three frameworks
and generally felt that more concrete steps needed to be made in the field of
media cooperation.

Deputy Prime Minister of Lao PDR Thongloune Sisoulith, when opening the Amri
conference, called for a more structured media network of Asean countries.

Malaysian officials said that drawing from the experience of establishing
the NAM (Non-Aligned Movement) News Network (NNN) Malaysia would propose a
similar arrangement for Asean.

Malaysian Information Communication and Culture Minister Dr Rais Yatim, who
is attending the meeting, is expected to propose that the grouping form an
outfit to gather and redistribute news on Asean from their own viewpoint.

Asean at the moment does not have such mechanism.
-- BERNAMA