Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's upcoming Thailand trip for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations(ASEAN) involved meetings will be a "journey of confidence, cooperation and development", said a Chinese diplomat on Monday.

China's first ambassador to the ASEAN Xue Hanqin told Xinhua that Wen will discuss with leaders of the ASEAN countries measures to fight against global financial crisis, and put forward China's proposals to boost east Asian cooperation.

Wen's trip from April 10-12 will be highlighted by a series of meetings in Pattaya of Thailand, including the 12th summit between the ASEAN and China (10+1), the 12th summit between the ASEAN and China, Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK)(10+3), the 4th East Asia Summit, and the breakfast meeting of leaders from China, Japan, and the ROK.

In an written interview with Xinhua, Xue said east Asian leaders are expected to announce a series of proposals and statements on their macro-economic policies, specific measures as well as willingness to survive the global financial crisis.

China and the ASEAN would ink investment deal on the upcoming summit, which marks the conclusion of China-ASEAN free trade agreement negotiation, Xue said, adding a free trade area would beset up by 2010 as schedule.

Upbeat on China-ASEAN ties, the ambassador said the past several years have witnessed strengthened political mutual trust, deepened trade and economic ties and ever prosperous cultural exchanges between both sides.

China and the ASEAN have established a strategic partnership aiming at peace and prosperity and have defined 11 major cooperative fields such as agriculture, information and communication, transportation, tourism and human resources exploitation.

As to east Asia's coordination to combat the global crisis, Xue believed countries in the region should facilitate financial cooperation, and speed up building the Asian Bond Market and operational sing the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization (CMIM), a regional foreign reserve pool in case of currency flow shortage.

She suggested east Asian nations step up cooperation in the areas of agriculture, food, poverty relief, energy, non-traditional security and human resources, and offer favorable investment and trade environment for each other.

The ambassador also urged regional countries to enhance coordination for reform of the international monetary system, to increase representation of emerging economies in the system.

The ASEAN, founded in 1967, groups 10 members of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.