Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will push for the resumption of the Doha Round of the stalled World Trade Organization (WTO) talks, ASEAN senior economic officials said here Wednesday.

While attending the ASEAN senior economic officials' meeting, which opened here Wednesday, Jose Antonio Buencamino, special trade representative of the Bureau of International Trade Relations of the Philippine Department of Trade and Industry, said the economic officials came up with a draft statement calling for progress in the Doha negotiations.

Buencamino said that in their meeting Wednesday morning, the ASEAN senior economic officials made only minor revisions of the draft statement which was circulated earlier on Jan. 5. Agreement on the draft was reached on Jan. 8.

He said ASEAN leaders are keenly looking forward to the resumption of the Doha Round to accelerate and ensure economic security and development in the region.

"ASEAN is open to regional groupings and is very much anxious to restart and negotiate the Doha Round and push it through. I think this is the clear message of ASEAN in relation to the Doha Round," Buencamino said.

He said that while ASEAN leaders will make their own contribution to the trade negotiations, they expect the major players to assume a vital role in getting the negotiations back on track.

He added that the broad thrust of the draft statement is based on the instruction of the ASEAN leaders to their ministers, senior officials and their representations to Geneva to intensify engagements on the Doha round.

"I think this is a big breakthrough that we achieved this morning and this is one of the cornerstones of the chairmanship of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of the 12th ASEAN summit," said Ambassador Victoriano Lecaros, spokesman for the 12th ASEAN summit.

The Doha round of trade talks was suspended on July 24, 2006 after the negotiations of the ministers from the so-called G-6 -- the European Union, United States, Australia, Brazil, India and Japan -- collapsed over disagreements on farm subsidies and tariffs.