Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi held talks on Thursday, stressing to strengthen and extend bilateral ties in the fields of trade, eliminating smoke, forest conservation in Borneo Island and labors.

In a joint press conference after the meeting at the State Palace here, Malaysian Prime Minister Badawi said, "We agree to beef up cooperation between Indonesia and Malaysia and we hope that the cooperation and our friendship will develop."

The visiting prime minister expected the two countries could increase volume and to extend the area of cooperation in the field of economy.

On the same occasion, President Susilo said the volume of trade of the two countries increased by 28 percent last year to 5.9 billion U.S. dollars.

"Malaysia, last year, was an investor with the highest investment of 2.2 billion U.S. dollars," said Susilo.

On smoke, the president said both countries would cooperate to eliminate the possibility of forest fire in Indonesia, which can produce smoke for the region.

"We agree to cooperate in conservation of forest in Borneo hearth (island), such as eliminating smoke," said Susilo.

Indonesia was criticized for smoke enveloping neighboring ASEAN countries resulted from forest fire in Borneo and Sumatra islands at the end of last year. President Susilo made an apology for this.

The smoke in 1998 enveloped the region and caused about 9 billion dollars' worth of economic loss.

Source: Xinhua