Participants of the two-day meeting also agreed the partnership should use development cooperation to reinforce ties and address common challenges in trade, finance and investment, climate change, food security, migration and security.

"We also agreed the Yogyakarta Statement will be presented as a valuable input at the eigth ASEM Summit to be held in Oct. 4-5 this year in Brussels, Belgium," director of Indonesian Foreign Ministry's intra-regional cooperation for America and Europe, Dian Wirengjurit, said after the closing.

Dian also said the conference was initially expected to result in a Yogyakarta declaration. Yet, due to a technical problem, it was later changed into a Yogyakarta statement. "But the substance is all the same. It's just a matter of a name," he said.

Hosted jointly by the Indonesian government and the European Commission, the meeting's central theme was "Towards an Asia-Europe Partnership for Sustainable Development".

Over 200 high-level officials and experts from Asia and Europe from 31 partner countries as well as representatives of international and civil society organizations joined the conference that was focused on climate change and low-carbon development, social cohesion, and policy coherence for development.

With regard to the future of Asia-Europe cooperation, the conference's participants suggested adjusting and designing the cooperation in a way that responds to the needs of the least developed and middle-income countries, especially considering the different socio-economic situations of different countries in Asia.

"Participants remain committed to pursue the goal of poverty eradication and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals based on the policies and strategies of developing countries," the two-page statement said.

On climate change, participants agreed the development and implementation of low-carbon growth strategies on all levels of governments and sectors are necessary and therefore underlined the importance of coordination among states on common activities to enhance information and technology sharing.

On social cohesion, participants agreed that food, income security and equal access to quality education and health services are the foundations of social cohesion that could be best obtained by full and productive employment and wide participation of citizens in wealth creation.

"This approach should be combined with different forms of social protection systems, including for migrant workers," the statement said.

Participants also recognized that Asia and Europe had been engaged in a multi-dimensional partnership that goes beyond just aid and therefore agreed that policy coherence for development was important especially in the areas of trade, finance and investment, climate change, food security, migration and security.

Yet, they also agreed that the concept of policy coherence for development should be further elaborated. "Participants agreed that pursuing policy coherence in both developed and developing countries is indispensable for sustainable development," they said.

ASEM is a dialogue forum that groups together 43 countries, comprising of 16 ASEAN+6 member states and 27 members of the European Union, and the ASEAN Secretariat. With the upcoming enlargement due to take place in the summit in Brussels, in which Australia and Russia will formally be accepted within the ASEM forum, the group will have 45 partner countries.

Presently, ASEM partners represent about 58 percent of the world's population, earn half of the world's income and control over 60 percent of the world's trade volume.

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