Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines agree to boost ties.

NUSA DUA, Indonesia, Oct. 6 Kyodo

Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines agreed here Monday to enhance their existing cooperation to promote more active business activities in their common growth area.

Leaders from the four countries forming the Brunei, Indonesia Malaysia, Philippines (BIMP)-East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) met here in their first summit since the grouping was launched in 1994.

BIMP-EAGA lumps together geographically close and economically less developed areas in these four countries, which belong to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It primarily aims to increase trade, tourism and investment in the area.

The leaders said in their joint statement released after the summit that they want to ''enhance the BIMP-EAGA initiatives by strengthening the institutional set-up of the BIMP-EAGA sub-regional cooperation.''

The leaders said they have asked their respective ministers and senior officials to strengthen the coordinating mechanism of the group through the establishment of a facilitation center in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia.

The leaders said they want to enhance business opportunities in the sub-region and ''develop more attractive trade and investment regimes, promote the development of external trade and undertake measures to eliminate trade impediments so as to reduce the cost of doing business in the BIMP-EAGA region.''

To this end, the leaders said they will focus on cooperation on tourism, transportation and agro-industry sectors.

They said they have also tasked their respective transport ministers ''to meet and take the lead in further promoting the development of land, air and sea linkages so as to encourage the flow of tourists, goods and services.''

The leaders said they welcome the participation of ASEAN dialogue partners China, Japan and South Korea in the development of the sub-region and noted the interest of Australia's Northern Territory to establish a close partnership with BIMP-EAGA.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

The BIMP-EAGA summit comes ahead of an ASEAN leaders' summit to issue a declaration on closer ties for economic integration and security cooperation in Southeast Asia.

Specifically, the BIMP growth area is composed of the Brunei sultanate; Indonesia's Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Irian Jaya and Maluku; the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak and the Federal Territory of Labuan; and the Philippines' Mindanao and Palawan.