Conference highlights challenges, prospects for ASEAN integration process

Challenges and development prospects of ASEAN member countries during the regional integration process were highlighted at an international conference held by the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia (ICCA) under the Russian Academy of Sciences that opened in Russia on May 17.

At the seminar (Photo: VNA)

Addressing the two-day event, ICCA Director Kirill Vladimirovich Babaev held that studying modern political, economic, cultural and social policy processes in East Asian countries, as well as cooperation among them and between the countries and Moscow is important to Russia in the current context.

He said that the conference provides a chance for experts from Russia and Asia-Pacific countries to exchange viewpoints on important international issues, thus promoting their cooperation.  

For his part, Nikolai Stanislavovich Nozdrev, Director of the Third Department of Asia under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia said that the research results of the experts are a source of preference for Russia’s external policy making process.

Speaking with Vietnam News Agency (VNA) correspondents in Moscow on the sidelines of the conference, head of the ICCA Centre for the Study of Vietnam and ASEAN Vladimir Moiseevich Mazyrin reiterated that Asia-Pacific is at the heart of the foreign policy of the Russia.

Meanwhile, Viktorovich Bredikhin, a ICCA expert affirmed that Vietnam is Russia’s leading important partner among ASEAN countries, especially amid the current difficult geopolitical situation.

Vietnam is the only ASEAN member country to share a comprehensive strategic partnership with Russia, and the first one to sign a free trade agreement with the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), the expert noted.

He held that in this context, Moscow should show a clearer role in settling regional issues, including the East Sea matters, on the basis of strengthening the enforcement of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) 1982.

Bredikhin proposed a Russia-China-Vietnam tripartite cooperation initiative in the region in areas of fisheries, scientific research, and oil and gas exploration and exploitation.

Participants at the event hailed the rising role of ASEAN in terms of politics, economy, and science and technology in the world, affirming that Russia should pay greater attention to promoting effective and substantial partnership with its traditional partners in the region./.

VNA