Moscow (VNA) – The ASEAN💎 Centre of the Moscow StateInstitute of International Relations held an international conference themed “Russia and ASEAN in Asia-Pacific Region: Dynamics of Cooperation, RegionalProcesses and the Global Context” from October 12-14.

This year, the conference is dedicated to the 5th anniversary ofthe ASEAN-Russia Strategic Partnership, discussing topics such as newchallenges and current situations of ASEAN countries; Russia-ASEAN cooperationin the digital era; political and economicresults of ASEAN Summit and East Asia Summit; modern regional trends; and Russia-ASEAN relations in current time.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the conference, RussianDeputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko affirmed that for Russia, relations withASEAN are always a foreign policy priority, which has been clearly shown inRussia's recently updated "Foreign Policy Concept".

More than 90 experts and scholars of Russia and ASEAN countries joined in 14 panel discussions ෴at the confer🌞ence.

Scholar Ngo Di Lan from the Institute for Foreign Policy andStrategic Studies, Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, in his speech titled"Vietnam's digital transformation strategy" said Vietnam aims toquickly modernise its economy to gain global competitiveness and overcomechallenges including the "middle-income trap", while ensuring socialjustice. Vietnam is focusing on building digital infrastructure and developinghuman resources in the field of digital transformation, coordinatingmulti-sectoral and international efforts to accelerate the pace of digitaltechnology application in many aspects of social life. Regarding the prospect of Russia-ASEAN cooperation in the abovefield, Lan said that ASEAN, including Vietnam, identify digital transformationto change the economic structure as a very high priority. He said the trendcreates favourable conditions for Russia which has a long history of scientificand technological development, to penetrate the ASEAN market. Meanwhile, Irina Korgun, director of the Centre of RussianStrategy in Asia under the Russian Academy of Sciences, highly appreciatedVietnam's position in the global value chain of information technology.According to her, as the electronics industry accounts for 17.8% of Vietnam's industrial sector and nearly 30% of its export turnover with a value of 114 billion USD, the country is a potential market for Russian businesses in the fields ofinformation technology and digital transformation. In energy cooperation, Inna Chuvychkina from theInstitute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences of the Russian Academyof Sciences said that Russia is facing difficulties due to internationalsanctions, finding new markets plays a very important role to the country.ASEAN is currently emerging as a potential market with energy demand expectedto triple by 2050./.