Southeast Asian nations are alarmed by fresh instability in the region, but insisted yesterday they will press ahead with plans to boost and integrate their economies to achieve long-term growth.

　　A deadly car bombing in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta on Tuesday rattled the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, whose finance ministers were wrapping up a meeting yesterday in Manila,swheres300 mutinous troops threw the Philippines into a crisis on July 27 that some fear may still be brewing.

　　"After SARS, all the terrorist attacks and all that, what we need to do is to reassure investors that while we cannot wish away all these bombings and whatnot, we want to do things which will give them the confidence to maintain their investment in the region and give them a reason to bring in more investments," ASEAN Secretary-General Ong Keng Yong told reporters yesterday as ministers headed off for a mini-retreat.

　　The ASEAN nations say they must push forward with a strategy of integrating their economies and bringing down barriers to trade.

　　In addition to security worries, the 10 ASEAN nations are scrambling to keep up with China, which - with its booming economy and powerful allure for Western corporate execu-tives - is now attracting a huge share of the region's inward investment.

　　The ASEAN ministers planned to condemn Tuesday's attack in Jakarta, which killed up to 14 people and injured about 150, in a communique coming out yesterday. But Ong said the national leaders will proceed with plans to meet in October on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, almost on the anniversary of a terror attack that killed 202 people.

　　"Some people were asking me why am I coming here when the coup is not yet finished," Ong told reporters late on Wednesday in the lobby of a posh hotel in the Makati business district,swheresa shopping and residential complex was stormed by the mutinous troops last month.

　　The rebels ringed the shopping- residential complex with booby-trap bombs but soon gave up peacefully.

　　"The fact that all the countries are represented here today is a very strong affirmation of our confidence in Philippine President Arroyo's government," Ong said.

　　Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo thanked delegates for showing up on Wednesday and said that showed "the Philippines is back to normal."

　　But Philippine Finance Secretary Jose Isidro Camacho said separately that while the mutiny was in progress, some of his counterparts "understandably" phoned to ask whether the meeting would proceed. Camacho told them it would because the rebellion was not sustainable.

　　"There was no hesitance on our part to tell our partners that the meeting's going to continue," Camacho said. "Many of them didn't even make the phone call. They just assumed the meeting will take place."

　　ASEAN ministers said that their economies are bouncing back from the SARS crisis, and that they are shifting their focus back to longer-term goals of closer integration, including tighter cooperation with big neighbors China, Japan and South Korea. Officials from all 13 nations - known as ASEAN plus 3 - were set to meet yesterday.

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