REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, BRUNEI--President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono high-lightened the importance of regional collaboration to ensure food and energy security at the East Asia Summit.

The issues of food and energy security had to be raised at the meeting as the population of East Asia is expected to reach 3.8 billion in the next few years, Presidential Special Aide for Economic Affairs Firmansyah said in Bandar Seri Begawan Brunei on Thursday.

East Asian countries would have to seriously consider joint efforts to deal with the consequences of the population rise, he added. "Besides food and energy security, the President also underlined the importance of joint research and technology use," he said.

At the meeting,  President also emphasized the inevitably need of increasing connectivity among East Asian nations to promote better economic growth.  "East Asia must strengthen its regional economic base. Connectivity absolutely is the key to reach such a goal," said Firmansyah.

"Leaders at the East Asia Summit also deliberated on the importance of ensuring transparent and clean governance. The framework for cooperation on this (issue) has to be discussed further. However, all leaders agreed on the importance of clean government to create economic growth and common prosperity. This has also been their common concern."

Firmansyah said the issue of food supply security had been discussed globally for which detailed discussions would take place at the ministerial level.

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