Push for new world order

		'The voice of Asia needs to be heard,' said Chalongphob Sussangkarn, a former Thai finance minister who is now at the Thailand Development Research Institute. 'We (Asia) are the biggest creditor in the world... East Asia needs to take an active role in the reform of the global financial architecture.' -- PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS

BANGKOK - ASIAN leaders will seek to assert a key role in a new world economic order this week at the first major international summit since the G20 unveiled a landmark recovery plan for the global recession.

The summit starting on Friday in Thailand will give the region of nearly three billion people a chance show its clout after last week's meeting in London, which raised hopes for an era of economic cooperation and reform.

But the export-driven region must also find new strategies to shore up its own tanking economies, as the twin threats of mass unemployment and social unrest loom.

In addition to the economy the leaders are also set to discuss North Korea's launch of a long-range rocket, and deadly border clashes between Thai and Cambodian troops.

'The voice of Asia needs to be heard,' said Chalongphob Sussangkarn, a former Thai finance minister who is now at the Thailand Development Research Institute.

'We (Asia) are the biggest creditor in the world... East Asia needs to take an active role in the reform of the global financial architecture.' The three-day summit in the resort of Pattaya will group the leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) plus those of regional partners China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the heads of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and World Trade Organisation will attend a related summit in Bangkok on Sunday.

Asia is a key example of what British Prime Minister Gordon Brown described last week as the 'new world order", backed by a Group of 20 communique saying it would take the developing world more into account.

The group also pledged to give more than one trillion dollars to financial institutions to support stricken economies in emerging and developing countries, amid calls for reform of global financial systems.