As the virus stings, ASEAN leaders vote for the food and drug supply.

HANOI: Southeast Asian leaders pledged to keep trade routes open to protect food supplies and store medical equipment during an online summit on Tuesday while warning of the crippling economic cost of the coronavirus.

Led by Vietnam, which chaired the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting, the leaders agreed to share resources and fight to limit further damage to the region's already devastated export and tourism economies. of COVID-19. .

But an emergency fund proposed by Hanoi to deal with the pandemic does not appear to have received the green light.

In a joint statement, the leaders pledged "to keep the ASEAN markets open for trade and investment ... to ensure food security."

They also pledged to work together to ensure the adequate supply of personal protective equipment and diagnostic tools, as well as to use "reserve tanks to meet the needs of ASEAN member states in the event of public health emergencies."

China later said it wanted to establish a special fund to help ASEAN countries fight the pandemic, but declined to say how much money will be allocated.

After the summit, which was joined by leaders from China, Japan and South Korea, Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang also declared his support for a $ 5 billion recovery package proposed by the Asian Investment Bank in Infrastructure (AIIB) with the support of Beijing.

"We welcome AIIB's proposal for a COVID-19 recovery center with an initial capitalization of $ 5 billion," Li said, according to state media.

Live the life of severely affected people "

In his opening remarks by videoconference, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc praised ASEAN's work in fighting the virus.

But he warned that the disease "has seriously affected people's lives, their socioeconomic situation ... defying stability and social security."

Vietnam has had some success in containing the virus through extensive quarantine and social distancing.

It has registered 265 infections and no deaths, while Thailand has kept its number relatively low with just over 2,500 cases and 40 deaths.

The situation is mixed in other parts of the region, fearing that limited evidence in Indonesia has resulted in a low number of cases and less than 400 deaths for the country of 260 million.

Similarly, frayed health systems from Myanmar to Laos are believed to lack the true scale of infections.

A recent surge in cases in Singapore has raised concerns that the pandemic may recover in places that had slowed the initial outbreak.

Vietnam used the 10-member summit to propose funds to tackle the pandemic, an idea supported by Malaysia and the Philippines.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte warned that he was "particularly concerned about food security."

The entire region has been severely affected by the virus.

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In Vietnam, many factories continue to operate, but, as a sign of current risks, dozens of workers at a Samsung unit in the north have been quarantined after one tested positive for the virus.

Thailand's second largest economy in ASEAN is expected to decline 5.3 percent this year, a 22-year low, with millions of unemployed in the politically affected kingdom.

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As the virus stings, ASEAN leaders vote for the food and drug supply.