South East Asian countries issued an urgent appeal yesterday for global assistance to stabilise their financial markets as the region's battered currencies continued to crash.

Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) said in a joint statement after an annual summit that turmoil persisted despite their efforts to correct economic fundamentals, and warned that the world had a stake in improving their fortunes.

"Recognising the global dimension of the problem, they called for greater national, regional and international efforts, including by the major economies such as the European Union, Japan and the United States, and international financial institutions to overcome this situation as soon as possible and address the systemic issues underlying it," the statement said.

The ASEAN leaders later discussed the financial crisis in a broader summit with key partners Japan, China and South Korea - the latter itself embroiled in crisis - but got little more than expressions of sympathy and support.

here was no immediate reaction from US and European officials or agencies like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which engineered rescue programmes for Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea totalling over $100 billion. The Japanese Prime Minister Mr Ryutaro Hashimoto expressed surprise at the depth of Asia's currency crisis following talks with leaders from south east Asia along with China and South Korea.

"The Asian currency crisis is much more severe than I thought," the prime minister told reporters. "Half a year ago, we may have been able to say the 2Oth century was Asia's departure from colonial rule and recovery from the ruins of war. But now we don't have as much confidence as half a year ago."

The ASEAN joint statement said that it was "urgent that global efforts be undertaken, including the central role of the IMF, to find ways to arrest the currency slide and restore stability to the currency markets."

ASEAN groups Brunei, Burma, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippinesm Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

China, the only summit participant so far spared from financial turmoil, said that it was ready to discuss financial co-operation with ASEAN, after earlier declaring itself immune from the crisis.