Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand agreed to create a committee to oversee the implementation of concrete actions to address the forest fires and the resulting haze.

The five are all members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which also groups Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines and Vietnam. The five countries also agreed to start a haze fund to implement actions on the problem and to rehabilitate affected areas.

Indonesia and Singapore pledged US$50,000 each for the fund. The environment ministers of Brunei, Malaysia and Thailand signed the agreement but said that their contributions to the fund were still subject to the approval of their heads of state.

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At the conference on Friday, neighbouring nations affected by choking smoke haze from Indonesian forest fires agreed to "adopt a fire-prone district" from the archipelago in a bid to cut the pollution.

Indonesian farmers bum forests annually to clear land for agriculture, causing a haze that spreads across Southeast Asia during the dry season, affecting tourism and increasing health problems.