Malaysia today pushed for Asean approval to house a secretariat for the dialogue process between the 10-member Southeast Asian grouping and China, Japan and South Korea, which was rejected last July by some member countries.

"Malaysia believes there should be a secretariat to handle bigger issues beyond Asean. At the moment, the Asean secretariat (in Jakarta) is certaintly very overloaded," Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi told reporters.

Earlier, Abdullah held a dialogue session with some 30 young Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) leaders on the sidelines of the three-day East Asia Economic Summit.

"I am looking at the Asean-plus-three cooperation as a special cooperation. If the secretariat is in Kuala Lumpur, it can concentrate more on certain projects that need to be undertaken. At the moment we cannot get the consensus.