Environment ministers from haze-hit Southeast Asian nations convened today in Indonesia to thrash out ways of combating annual blazes that create a choking pall of smoke over the region.

Ministers from Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand were to hold talks in Pekanbaru on the island of Sumatra, one of the areas worst-hit by the smog each year. The city was smothered in haze early Friday.

Indonesian forestry minister MS Kaban said ahead of the talks that Jakarta would probably seek equipment and technological assistance from its neighbours to fight the fires.

"We are trying to find out whether they have technology that we can perhaps use," he told reporters.

The Indonesian government, which has been criticised by its neighbours for failing to prevent the land-clearing fires, said this week it would ratify a regional treaty aimed at controlling the haze.

Already a signatory to the 2002 treaty, it gave no indication of when it planned to carry out the ratification which could still take months.

Separately the government announced it had earmarked nearly US$11 million to spend on measures aimed at dousing the fires, which can smoulder for weeks if lit in peatland areas.

"The president has asked that 100 billion rupiah (10.8 million dollars) be made ready to fight the smoke," said welfare minister Aburizal Bakrie, who heads the national team dealing with the haze, according to Kompas newspaper.

Hiring helicopters

He said that the money would be used to hire two helicopters from a private Malaysian firm, two aircraft from Russia and one from Australia.

The Russian planes, capable of carrying 42,000 litres of water to dump on the fires on Sumatra and Kalimantan, would be used from Sunday. The helicopters and Australian plane would be used to seed clouds with chemicals in a bid to artificially create rain, the report said.

The measures follow an apology from Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to neighbouring countries over the haze blanketting the region in the past few weeks which has cause health problems and disrupted travel and tourism.

Malaysia and Singapore have been calling on Jakarta to take serious action against the fires, lit each year by plantation companies as well as farmers using traditional slash-and-burn methods to clear land ahead of the monsoon.

The practice has been outlawed but enforcement remains weak.

The haze hit its worst level in 1997-98 and cost the Southeast Asian region an estimated 9.0 billion dollars by disrupting air travel and other business activities.