Indonesia turns ASEAN focus to food, energy security

JAKARTA, May 7 (AFP): Indonesia Saturday warned fellow Southeast Asian states that rising food and energy prices could drive more people into poverty and urged coordinated action to fight inflation. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said at the start of the annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit that the regional bloc must take steps to ease the surge in consumer prices. "We must give serious attention and take concrete measures to address the soaring of food prices and world energy, which in turn will negatively affect the prosperity of our people," he said in his opening speech. "History shows that the rise of food and energy prices... has always caused the increase in the number of people living in poverty, yet we know very well that decreasing the poverty level is not an easy task." Oil prices soared to their highest peaks in more than two years last month, driven largely by political turmoil in the crude-producing Middle East and North Africa region. The increase has sparked fears that inflation could slow down the recovery from the global recession in 20082009. ASEAN groups 10 disparate nations from oil-rich Brunei and high-tech Singapore to impoverished Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, as well as major rice producers Thailand and Vietnam and rice- importers like the Philippines.