DANANG (Vietnam) - ASEAN finance ministers met in Vietnam on Friday to look at ways of coping with soaring prices and the global economic slowdown, which are expected to hurt growth across the region.

The spiralling cost of fuel and rice has drawn warnings of unrest, and the Asean meeting comes just days after the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank both cut growth forecasts for 2008 - in part over surging inflation.

Ministers from the 10-nation Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean) gathered in the Vietnamese city of Danang, looking for the 'best common measure' to address the situation, Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung said.

Many experts believe that Asia in general will be able to weather the financial turmoil that started in the United States with the sub-prime mortage crisis better than it would have in the past.

World Bank managing director Juan Jose Daboub said there was a 'cautious optimism' for the region but said nations had a tricky task ahead.

They 'have to be able to juggle three balls in the air - one being the impact of the situation in the United States...the second ball being of course food prices and oil prices, and the third one keeping the pace of reforms'.

This week the ADB said it expected growth to slow in the Asian region excepting Japan, while the World Bank said the same for what it groups as East Asia - also without including Japan.

The World Bank said the region could see an aggregate income loss of one per cent of gross domestic product due to price increases, which it said were hitting the poor especially hard.

'Dealing with high food and fuel prices probably constitutes a greater challenge to governments in East Asia than the financial turmoil in the United States and a slowing global economy,' it said.

Asean's members are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. - AFP