Da Nang (VNA) – The APEC UniversityLeaders’ Forum took place in the central city of Da Nang on November 8 with theparticipation of nearly 60 representatives from universities, businesses andState management agencies in the region.

The forum aims to build and promote linksbetween governments, universities and businesses as well as turn tertiaryeducation into one of the important factors in sustainable development in eachnation, contributing to regional and global prosperity.

President of the Vietnam National University-Hanoi,Nguyen Kim Son, said the forum provides a venue for university leaders to meetand share experience in higher education administration in the digital era and internetof things and contributes to enhancing bilateral and multilateral cooperationbetween leading universities in the region.

Vietnam is pushing ahead with economicrestructuring and tertiary education reform, he said, adding that the forumcreates a good chance for Vietnamese universities to learn experience indevelopment reform.

He expressed his belief that with theintellectuality and creativity, APEC universities will create a new drivingforce for APEC cooperation and become an important pillar alongside those ineconomics, politics and trade.

Jointly organised by Vietnam’s Ministry ofEducation and Training and the Vietnam National University-Hanoi, the forumconsists of two sessions on “Sustainability, Big Data and Asia-PacificChallenges” and “Employment, Data Science and Artificial Intelligence”.

The first session focused on promotingpartnership to create innovative and sustainable measures to tackle climatechange, mitigate risks from natural disasters, and address the social gap andaging population in the Asia-Pacific region, among other issues.

Meanwhile, the second session looked into how todevelop labour forces which are capable of analysing data science to supportsustainable economic development and prosperity in the region and challengesposed for tertiary education in providing necessary skills for students to meetthe requirements of the fourth industrial revolution.

Established in 1989, the Asia-Pacific EconomicCooperation (APEC) forum comprises 21 economies, including Australia, Brunei,Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong-China, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea,Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia,Singapore, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, the US, and Vietnam.

APEC represents about 39 percent of the world’spopulation and contributes 57 percent to global GDP and 49 percent ofinternational trade.-VNA