John Key

By Ian Llewellyn of NZPA

Bangkok, Oct 21 NZPA - Prime Minister John Key heads into an extremely tight security zone on Friday as Thailand tries to prevent its third attempt at hosting the East Asian Summit from being disrupted by protests.

More than 18,000 soldiers and police are being deployed at the seaside resort of Hua Hin, south of Bangkok, and are pledging to enforce newly enacted security regulations which essentially ban protests and create curfews in the area of the summit and in Bangkok.

Thailand's Government and army were embarrassed when protests disrupted the last attempt to host the summit in April.

Security forces seemed unable or unwilling to stop opponents of the current Thai Government from smashing their way into venue and forcing many Asian leaders to be airlifted out of the area.

Mr Key did not even get out of Bangkok airport before the summit was called off.

The first summit was canned when another group of political protesters occupied Bangkok Airport bringing air travel there to a virtual standstill.

The summit brings together the 10 southeast Asian nations under the Asean banner and six others -- China, Japan, India, Australia, South Korea and New Zealand -- to discuss moves to create a pan-Asia trading bloc to rival and eventually eclipse the European Union.

At a recent Asean think-tank meeting in Jakarta participants spoke of the need to raise wealth levels throughout the region in order to create new markets.

In the past China and Asean nations have looked to drive their economic growth through exports to the United State and Europe, but the international credit crisis and the following recession has led to many in the region pushing for more regional trade.

Internal regional trade has grown by 55 percent in recent years and is expected to grow even faster as many Asian countries have weathered the recession better than those in the developed world.

Asean has already signed trade deals with New Zealand, Australia and other countries in the proposed bloc, but it wants go further still to form a Comprehensive Economic Partnership in East Asia, known as Cepea.

This would cover 50 percent of the world's population, including one of world's richest nations in Japan, some of the poorest such as Laos, as well as the expanding economic powerhouses of China and India.

It is estimated that tariff elimination and the reduction of other trade barriers in Cepea would lift New Zealand's GDP by $500 million or 2 percent.

East Asia Summit countries currently make up 52 percent of New Zealand's exports or $28 billion in 2008.

Asean members believe progress can be made faster in the bloc they are organising than the glacial progress that has been made in the Asian/Pacific region through the Apec process or the global trade talks through the World Trade Organisation.

After attending the summit over the weekend, Mr Key travels to Malaysia for the signing of a trade deal with that country and then on to Japan for talks with the new government there and a series of business and tourism promotions.

He returns to New Zealand on November 2 after attending the Bledisloe Cup rugby match against Australia, which is being played in Tokyo.