Thailand's Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawattra urged East Asian countries to further enhance regional integration through connectivity as leaders and businessmen gather in Bangkok to discuss regional development at the World Economic Forum on East Asia.

"To address the challenges of global economic turmoil, we must continue to promote regional cooperation and integration. And the key to this is connectivity," Yingluck said.

Yingluck called on countries in the region to join hands in completing both physical and soft connectivity network to ensure people and goods can move freely across border.

Under the theme "Shaping the Region's Future through Connectivity", this year's forum attracted over 630 participants, some 200 more than expected, from 50 countries and regions to share their perspectives on the new challenges and opportunities of shaping the region's future with cooperation and connectivity, according to the organizer.

The participants include four heads of state or government, from Indonesia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, and more than 450 business elites together with other members of civil society and academia.

Centering on the topic of building up intra-Asia connectivity, the forum also integrates three sub-themes: rethinking regional models for a new global context, responding to a regional risk and realizing regional connectivity.

"What we are trying to do today is to facilitate trade, eliminate barriers, from customs tariff reduction, credit facilities availability, logistics and connectivity," said Kittiratt Na-Ranong, Thailand's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance.

"We will try to improve logistic connectivity among ourselves in a way that the cost of transport can be as low as possible to better facilitate trade and abundant resources from different economies can be exchanged," he added.

East Asia has been for too long trying to concentrate on export- led growth and forgetting to improve its own economies and markets. "By improving the productivity, efficiency and purchasing power within our own economies, we can serve ourselves better, achieve easier growth and help balance the world economy," Kittiratt said.

To form a single ASEAN market by 2015, the bloc's member countries should strike a balance between driving domestic, regional and global economic growth and creating a buffer for external shocks, he said.

The meeting also brings together some international public figures such as Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is scheduled to attend on Friday a one-on-one conversation session and a plenary session focusing on Asian women's roles in society.