Malaysia and Singapore today made calls for a coordinated Southeast Asian response to the annual haze problem, after last week's smog crisis which enveloped parts of Malaysia including its capital.

Malaysia's Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said that an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) agreement on haze must be translated into an action plan which can be rolled out when needed.

The official Bernama news agency quoted Syed Hamid as saying that currently, the issue was only taken up when pollution problems flared, and that this could affect cooperation among Asean nations.

"Asean has many transboundary cooperation frameworks which can be jointly organised," Syed Hamid told reporters.

"I hope the spirit of cooperation which has been developed among Asean members can be turned into action which would benefit members," he said.

Better response needed

The 10-nation Asean bloc signed a pollution control agreement in 2002, in response to the 1997-98 haze crisis which cost the region an estimated US$9 billion in losses.

Singapore today also called for a better Southeast Asian response to the problem, as it announced it would send a military cloud-seeding plane to help Indonesia fight forest fires creating the haze.

Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Yaacob Ibrahim said Singapore and the rest of Asean "share a collective interest in the haze situation" because it will affect tourism in the region.

"We are all concerned equally about the image of Asean as an effect of this haze and (the Indonesian environment minister) understands it also, that's why he was prepared to take the offer of support from Singapore, Malaysia and the other countries," Yaacob said.

"So we will do our part to work together with our Indonesian counterparts to try and control this problem. I think more importantly, Asean should come together and see this as an Asean challenge so that we can tackle this as quickly as possible."

S'pore unaffected so far

Singapore has so far been unaffected by this year's haze, which is an annual problem for the region, but Malaysian meteorologists said today that the smoke and dust was shifting north to southern Thailand.

Malaysia was hit last week by a heavy layer of haze which smothered the capital Kuala Lumpur and surrounding districts, as well as the west coast, shutting down the country's biggest port.

Heavy rains and shifting winds helped clear the haze there over the weekend, sending it towards northern Malaysia instead. On Tuesday, the pollution began clearing from the north and Sarawak state on Malaysian Borneo.

A team of 125 Malaysian firefighters departed for Sumatra island on Monday to battle the blazes, after a delay which the government blamed on Indonesian bureaucracy.

Indonesia said last week that it is hoping other Southeast Asian nations will help it fight the forest fires.