Ambassador Nguyen Hai Bang, head of Vietnam’s Permanent Mission to ASEAN (Photo: VNA) Ambassador Nguyen Hai Bang, head of Vietnam’s Permanent Mission to ASEAN, attended the event, which was to review and discuss measures to accelerate the implementation of projects and activities in the ASEAN-Russia cooperation.
At the meeting, the sides spoke highly of fruitful cooperation results across all fields. Economic cooperation, trade and investment between ASEAN and Russia have been strengthened in recent years.
2021 marks the 30th anniversary of bilateral relations and 25 years of the ASEAN-Russia dialogue partnership.
Under the ASEAN-Russia Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA) for the 2016-2020 period, 99 out of 139 lines of action were carried out in politics-security, economy, socio-culture, connectivity and development gap narrowing.
As of February 28, the ASEAN-Russia Dialogue Partnership Financial Fund (ARDPFF) had over 8.13 million USD, 1.5 million USD of which was contributed by Russia each year.
Russia affirmed that ASEAN is one of the top priorities in its external policy, and pledged to support the bloc in building the ASEAN Community and strengthening its central role in the regional structure, along with cooperation in the fight against terrorism and transnational crime.
Russia also vowed to foster regional connectivity and narrow development gap, and actively join regional mechanisms led by ASEAN, contributing to peace, stability and security in the region.
ASEAN member states highly valued positive outcomes of the cooperation programmes and plans, which have helped ASEAN realise targets in community building and development gap narrowing.
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the two sides affirmed the need to closely work together to effectively cope with the pandemic, and promote recovery in an comprehensive and sustainable manner.
Regarding future cooperation orientation, they agreed to continue deepening the ASEAN-Russia strategic partnership, focusing on fields of mutual concern, especially those Russia is strong in and ASEAN pays heed to such as trade and investment facilitation, science-technology, connectivity, development gap narrowing, Smart Cities Network initiative, human resources development, support for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, education, youth exchange, disease prevention, disaster management and climate change response.
In the near future, the two sides will coordinate closely to speed up and complete the goals set in the CPA for the 2021-2025, which serves as a cornerstone for cooperation orientations in the new stage, and prepare for activities marking the 30th anniversary of bilateral relations and 25 years of the ASEAN-Russia dialogue partnership./.
VNA
