Southeast Asian environment ministers will try to find a long-term solution to the region's annual fire haze problem at a meeting in Manila next week, Malaysia and Singapore said yesterday.

Malaysia's Environment Minister Adenam Satem said the talks would tackle the transboundary air pollution problem and ways to prevent it, the Bernama news agency reported.

The choking haze - blamed on forest and peat fires and open burning on plantations in Indonesia and parts of Malaysia - again enveloped both countries and the south of Thailand this year.

Singapore's Environment Minister Yaacob Ibrahim, in Malaysia for a bilateral meeting, said that in spite of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) haze agreement, there was a need for improved prevention.

He said discussions at the ministerial meeting might lead to haze making the agenda at an Asean summit in December, Bernama reported.

"We want to take concrete steps to tackle the problem," Yaacob said, adding that the haze problem had adversely affected tourism in the region.

Coordinated response

Asean environment ministers and their counterparts from China, Japan and South Korea are due to meet in Manila for four days from September 26.

Malaysia and Singapore have called for a more coordinated response from Asean to the annual haze problem, which in 1997-98 cost the region some US$9 billion by disrupting air travel, tourism and other business.

Malaysia has been worst hit by the smoke and dust, which in August sent air pollution to extremely hazardous levels and forced schools and an airport to close.

Asean comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.