Thailand will ask China for help in dealing with the record-low water levels in the Mekong River, on which more than 60 million people depend, the prime minister said Sunday.

The flows are the lowest for 20 years, according to the Mekong River Commission (MRC), which has said water supply, navigation and irrigation are at threat.

"We can see the level of the water is getting lower," premier Abhisit Vejjajiva said on the issue, which is affecting northern Laos as well as northern Thailand and southern China.

"We will ask the foreign ministry to talk with a representative from China in terms of co-operation and in terms of management systems in the region," he said on his weekly television programme.

The government has been urged by local activists to hold talks with Beijing on the Mekong following alarming drops in the river's flow, local media reported last month.

The Bangkok Post said the Save the Mekong Coalition - an alliance of environmental groups and Mekong riverside communities - believes the unusually low water levels are caused by Chinese dams.

But Jeremy Bird, chief executive officer of the MRC's secretariat, pointed to extremely low rainfalls in Laos and China.

However, he told AFP last week it was "difficult for us to say categorically that there's no link" between the low water levels and the eight existing or planned dams on the mainstream Mekong in China.

Chavanond Intarakomalyasut, secretary to the foreign ministry, said that Thailand was "not accusing anyone" and blamed the drought on low rainfall across the region.

"The help that we want to get from China is that we want to talk with them," he told AFP. "We would like to solve the problem with them".

More than 60 million people in the lower Mekong basin depend on the river system for food, transport and economic activity, the inter-governmental MRC says, adding that it is home to the world's most valuable inland fishery.

"Severe drought will have an impact on agriculture, food security, access to clean water and river transport and will affect the economic development of people already facing serious poverty," the group has said in a statement.

River tour operators have stopped offering services on the river between the Laotian tourist centre of Luang Prabang and Huay Xai on the Thai border, it added.

                                                                                                                                  By AFP