Member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nation were determined to harmonize their efforts to fight against transnational crime despite great challenge in the process, a high official of ASEAN said in Bangkok Wednesday evening.  

It is very timely and significant for ASEAN ministers to meet on the fight of transnational crimes when the region had witnessed a rise of the untraditional crime, the ASEAN Deputy Secretary-General Wil Frido Villacorta told a press conference after a preparatory session by senior officials for ASEAN ministerial meeting on Thursday.

Transnational crime was a broad problem involving drug trafficking, arms smuggling, illegal immigration, money laundering and terrorist attack, and therefore required regional cooperation to address the issue, said Villacorta.

Wednesday's preparatory meeting would recommend ASEAN ministers to reach an agreement on improving legal coordination to curb transnational crimes.

A joint communique was also drafted on how to improve the region's cooperation to fight against transnational crimes. The communique would be forwarded to Thursday's ministerial meeting on the issue.

The other ASEAN ministerial meeting on transnational crime plus China, Japan and Korea would be held Saturday following the ASEAN ministerial meeting.

But Villacorta admitted that ASEAN still had a long way to go to eventually harmonize their legal systems to fight transnational crime, noting the communique only mentioned tentative proposals on how to improve the region's cooperation in this fight.

(Xinhua News Agency January 8, 2004)