Good trade and cultural relations with Asian countries could be further improved following useful meetings in London earlier this month, the Taoiseach said yesterday.

Mr Ahern was making a statement on the Second Asia Europe Summit which took place in London April 2nd-4th.

He said he had accepted an invitation to visit China and had invited Premier Zhu Ronji to visit Ireland.

He said the summit came at a significant time for Asia and for Asian-European relations.

While it was a planned part of the ASEM process begun in Bangkok in 1996, its occurrence at this time, when many of the Asian participant countries were in deep financial and economic crisis, heightened the summit's importance and focused deliberations.

"Of course, it also took place at a very significant time for Anglo-Irish relations and provided opportunities to progress some of the outstanding issues which led to the final agreement," Mr Ahern said.

He had been seriously concerned at the effects of the financial crisis in Asia. Perhaps one of the most important facts about the recovery measures to assist Asian countries was that some 29 per cent of the funding for such measures was provided by the European Commission and its member-states.

The EU was concerned at the impact of the crisis, regionally and globally, and was responding generously. The EU was confident recovery could be achieved but it was critical that available resources were used to support appropriate economic restructuring.

At the summit there was a frank recognition of the poor regulatory systems, bad investment analysis and, in some instances, corruption which had contributed to the crisis. Equally, there was resentment at the role played by international currency traders and speculators and a call for improved regulation of such activity.

He believed the business forum which took place in tandem with the summit gave a useful impetus to the development of interregional trade. Many issues discussed were of interest to Ireland.

"These include international arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The important issues of child welfare and the fight against the commercial and sexual exploitation of children were raised, together with the combating of international crime in areas such as drug-trafficking and money-laundering," the Taoiseach said.

Discussions also included the promotion of co-operation on information and communication technology. This was of particular interest to Ireland and to himself, given his responsibility for the Information Society Commission.

"I believe there are many areas of opportunity for co-operative and complementary relations to develop between Irish and Asian companies, exploiting differing time zones, skills and market expertise - and this was a theme of many of the discussions which I had with individual Asian leaders," he said.

In the longer term, the Vision Group would chart the development of the ASEM process. Mr Albert Reynolds represented Ireland on the group.

"I should mention that I took the opportunity to seek the support of individual ASEM leaders for Ireland's candidature for one of the non-permanent seats on the UN Security Council in the elections in 2000," the Taoiseach stated.

He had met Premier Zhu Ronji of China. "I accepted Premier Zhu's invitation to visit China and invited him to visit Ireland,", he said.

Mr John Bruton, Fine Gael leader, said he was at the Bangkok meeting and since then things had changed. Ireland could learn from it that we must be sure the currency policy pursued in the euro would suit Ireland. At least we would have a say in it. The Asians had had no say in their currency policy.

On third-level co-operation, Mr Bruton said Asian students attended universities in Europe and there were virtually no European students attending universities in east Asia.

"If we want to do business with east Asia we need to understand east Asia and probably the best way of all of understanding is to live there for a while, particularly when you are a student," he said.