ASEAN urged to ratify haze accord

ASEAN urged to ratify haze accord

SINGAPORE: Indonesia and Singapore have urged fellow members
of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to speed up
ratification of an agreement to fight pollution caused by forest
fire haze.

State Minister for the Environment Nabiel Makarim and
Singapore Environment Minister Lim Swee Say made the call in a
joint statement issued after a meeting here on Tuesday.

"Both ministers agreed that in the light of the return of
transboundary haze pollution, there is urgency for ASEAN member
states to expedite their national clearance process to ratify and
bring the ASEAN Haze Agreement into force as early as possible,"
they said.

The agreement was signed by all 10 ASEAN members during a
meeting in Kuala Lumpur in June, but the accord needs to be
ratified by each member state in accordance with its own
ratification processes.

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

Last month, Singapore said smoke haze from forest fires in
Indonesia had pushed the pollution index to its highest reading
this year.

Parts of neighboring Malaysia and Brunei have also suffered
from the smoke blown from Indonesia this year. Choking haze from
Indonesian fires enveloped large parts of Southeast Asia in 1997
and to a lesser extent in 1998, causing an estimated US$9.3
billion in economic losses. --AFP