The Economic Ministers of ASEAN member states and their partner countries on August 28 emphasised the importance of further strengthening regional economic cooperation and promoting economic growth post COVID-19

The Government has issued a resolution approving the first protocol that amends the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA).

Economic growth in the ASEAN region could rebound to an average 8 percent in 2021 after falling into recession in the first half of 2020, a report suggested on June 8.

Economic ministers from the ten ASEAN Member States and the Plus Three Partners (China, Japan, and Republic of Korea) have affirmed the need to keep the markets open for trade and investment amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh informed the press on the outcomes of two special virtual meetings of ASEAN on responding to the COVID-19 pandemic that Vietnam hosted on June 4, as Chair of the ASEAN in 2020.

Economic ministers from ASEAN member nations and the three partners of China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea (known as ASEAN+3) adopted a joint statement on June 4 on mitigating the economic impact of COVID-19.

Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Tuan Anh, on behalf of ASEAN Economic Ministers, held a phone discussion with Secretary-General of ASEAN Lim Jock Hoi on May 6 regarding plans for recovering the regional economy and maintaining intra-bloc supply chains after the COVID-19 pandemic has been brought under control.

The Government recently issued Decree 46/2020/ND-CP stipulating customs procedures, customs inspection and supervision of goods in transit through the ASEAN Customs Transit System to implement Protocol 7 on the Customs transit system.

Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh has recently written an article on ASEAN cooperation in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, in which he described solidarity as the grouping’s strength in the combat.

Kishore Mahbubani, former Singaporean Ambassador to the United Nations, once declared, “When ASEAN [the Association of Southeast Asian Nations] was born on the 8th of August 1967, it was destined to fail.” After all, Southeast Asia was, and continues to be, one of the most diverse regions in the world, hosting four major religions, 800 languages, innumerable ethnicities, and radically diverging political systems and cultures. Despite its unprecedented diversity, ASEAN has brought durable stability and prosperity to 655 million people in Southeast Asia. In an era of growing cultural pessimism, ASEAN is a miraculous counterexample of coexistence.