ASEAN ministers adopt digital masterplan to boost trade

KUALA LUMPUR - The first Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Digital Ministers’ meeting last Friday adopted the ASEAN Digital Masterplan 2025 to guide the group’s digital cooperation from 2021 to 2025.

In a joint declaration after the meeting, the ministers said the plan would prioritise ASEAN’s recovery from Covid-19, connect businesses and facilitate cross-border trade and build a digitally inclusive society, among other goals, making the group a leading digital community and economic bloc powered by secure and transformative digital services, technologies and ecosystem.

The ministers noted the importance of accelerating the inclusive digital transformation in ASEAN as one of the key strategy for the region to exit from the Covid-19 crisis.

The two-day virtual meeting was chaired by Malaysian Minister of Communications and Multimedia Saifuddin Abdullah, and attended by his counterparts from other ASEAN members, with the ministers also holding consultations with their counterparts from China, Japan, South Korea, India, the United States, and the International Telecommunication Union. The ASEAN ministers expressed appreciation for China’s active promotion and success of the 2020 ASEANChina Year of Digital Economy Cooperation, the establishment of ASEAN-China digital economy partnership, and activities on various topics, including digital technology in pandemic prevention and control, 5G use cases, artificial intelligence and industrial digital transformation by overcoming the negative impact of Covid-19.

- XINHUA.