CEBU CITY. Senior officials, foreign and economic ministers of the 10-member countries of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will start their ministerial meetings today to tackle issues that will further enhance cooperation, peace and economic development in the region.

The two-day ministerial meetings will be held at the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC) and the Mactan Shangri-La's Mactan Island Resort and Spa in the run-up to the ASEAN Leaders' Summit on Jan. 13-15.

Ambassador Victoriano Lecaros, spokesman for the 12th ASEAN summit, said the ministerial meetings will focus on various international and regional issues, review and discuss proposals to transform the vision of an ASEAN Community into a reality.

Simultaneous meetings by the ASEAN senior economic officials and the special ASEAN standing committee (ASC) will be held at the CICC this morning.

This will be followed by the meeting of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam senior officials and the special ASEAN Senior Officials' Meeting (SOM) in the afternoon.

Parallel meetings with the ASEAN senior officials and economic ministers will be held the following day, Jan. 11 at Shangri-La Hotel.

ASEAN senior officials, foreign and economic ministers will also meet with their counterparts from China, Japan, Korea and India.

The ASEAN leaders, on the other hand, will also hold separate summits --ASEAN Plus Three Summit and the 2nd East Asia Summit.

Aside from the main summit meeting, the ASEAN leaders will also hold other summits, including the annual ASEAN sub-regional grouping's summits such as the Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East Asia Growth Area, the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle and the Cambodia-Laos-Myanmar-Vietnam Grouping.

National Organizing Committee (NOC) secretary general Ambassador Marciano Paynor Jr. earlier said some 50 meetings are still to be conducted during the Jan. 10-15 schedule, and the figure may still rise depending on the issues that still need to be threshed out.

More than 90 meetings were listed for the Dec. 10-15 summit, which was postponed because of typhoon "Seniang."

Before the original summit was postponed, ASEAN economic ministers had already signed six agreements consisting of four intra-ASEAN documents and two ASEAN-China accords.

Among the agreements already signed are the ASEAN Framework (Amendment) Agreement for the Integration of Priority Sectors; ASEAN Sectoral Integration (Amendment) Protocol for the Integration of Priority Sectors; Protocol to Implement the 5th Package of Commitments under the ASEAN Framework Agreement on Services (AFAS); the ASEAN Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) on Nursing Services; the Second Protocol to Amend the Framework Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation between ASEAN and the People's Republic of China; and the Protocol to Amend the Trade in Goods of the Framework on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation between ASEAN and the People's Republic of China.