By Megan Davies

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 14 (Reuters) - The surge in piracy off the Somali coast is a problem that can be turned around this year as efforts to disrupt the practice are ramped up, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday.

Increased piracy in one of the world's busiest shipping lanes has pushed up insurance costs and prompted foreign navies to rush to the area to protect merchant shipping after dozens of ships were hijacked in 2008 and tens of millions of dollars in ransom paid.

One of the more high profile was The Sirius Star, a Saudi supertanker carrying $100 million of crude oil hijacked by pirates on Nov. 15 and released Jan. 9 after a $3 million ransom was paid.

A newly formed Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia held its first meeting at the United Nations on Wednesday to focus on how to suppress the practice.

"We believe that 2009 will be a year where we can turn this problem around if we come together as a group of nations working not simply the military aspect but the judicial aspect, the financial aspect, the industry aspect," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Mark Kimmitt told reporters after the meeting.

Kimmitt said the probability of being pirated in the region was less than 1 percent and of those that were attacked last year, less than 50 percent were boarded and taken hostage.

"But that's still not good enough," he added.

The group said 24 nations met to discuss the problem and coordinate efforts, including China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Somalia. The British and U.S. representatives of NATO, and the International Maritime Organization also attended.

"Piracy is a symptom of a wider lack of security and rule of law in Somalia and continues to constitute a threat to regional stability," the group said in a statement.

The group said it agreed that better information on piracy was needed, and called on members to contribute additional surveillance assets.

It also stressed the importance of apprehending and prosecuting suspected pirates and said it would examine options for strengthening the ability of countries willing to detain and prosecute them.

The group said it also called on international bodies that track illicit financial flows to examine whether pirates were getting such flows.

It plans to meet again in March to review progress.

(Editing by Eric Beech)

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