The 38th ASEAN ministerial meeting closed Tuesday afternoon with fruitful achievements obtained on a number of commonly concerned international and regional issues.

The annual ministerial meeting, attended by foreign ministers of ASEAN member states and foreign ministers from Papua New Guinea and Timor Leste, agreed to establish ASEAN Development Fund, serving as the bloc's common pool of finance resource to support the implementation of the Vientiane Action Program (VAP) and the ASEAN Community.

Consensus has been reached among the ministers on mapping out ASEAN Charter, a key document with legal binding force to its members. The draft of the charter will be submitted to 11th ASEAN Leadership Summit in Malaysia later this year.

The meeting agreed to streamline and reform the procedures of ASEAN conferences in order to boost effectiveness and reduce expenditure of the organization.

Southeast Asian countries on Tuesday invited Australia, New Zealand and India to attend the inaugural East Asia Summit in Malaysia later this year, aiming for a big regional trade bloc.

Australia and New Zealand this year agreed to sign a nonaggression pact with ASEAN, a precondition for countries wished to attend the summit. India already signed the pact in 2003.

In the wake of the last year's tsunami calamity, ASEAN ministers endorsed the agreement on disaster management and emergency response in bid to respond correctively and expeditiously to national disasters.

New Zealand, Pakistan and the Republic of Korea (RoK) signed the joint declaration on anti-terrorism cooperation with ASEAN. Bangladesh was also acceded as the new member of the Asian Regional Forum (ARF) at Tuesday's meeting.

The ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Source: Xinhua