Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Quoc Dung, head of the ASEAN Coordinating Council Working Group on Public Health Emergencies, attended a high-level dialogue on July 30 discussing ASEAN’s economic recovery post COVID-19.

Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Quoc Dung attends the dialogue 

At the teleconferencing event, experts from the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, and World Economic Forum cast doubts on the prospect of the regional and global economies amid the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The speakers emphasized the importance of coordinating actions among countries and related sectors in response to the disease and economic recovery. From different perspectives, they suggested that priority should be given to a number of areas such as health care, social welfare, education, food security, and high quality infrastructure, alongside the application of digital technology and the fourth Industrial Revolution.

ASEAN's post-epidemic recovery process should be considered carefully to avoid affecting the implementation of common sustainable development goals that ASEAN and the region have been pursuing over the years, they stressed.

Deputy Minister Nguyen Quoc Dung acknowledged the speakers’ ideas, saying the economic recovery process should be carried out step by step focusing on the areas such as production, tourism and transportation, suitable for the actual situation, taking into account disadvantaged groups in society.

Recovery measures should be implemented in the short-, medium- and long-term periods, in line with the implementation of the dual goal of epidemic prevention and economic recovery, said Dung.  

As the Chair of the ASEAN Coordinating Council (ACC) Working Group on Public Health Emergencies (ACCWG-PHE), the Vietnamese Deputy Minister called on the private sector, international organizations and ASEAN partners to take part in and contribute to the drafting of ASEAN's overall recovery plan.

The overall recovery plan is an open document, which will be regularly updated and adjusted by ASEAN authorized agencies to match the actual development of the COVID-19 outbreak, he noted. But the plan, he said, must look to a people-centred ASEAN to ensure security and safety of the people, as well as to take care of disadvantaged groups in society.

It is expected that the overall plan will be submitted to the ASEAN leaders for consideration and comments at the 37th ASEAN Summit slated for this November.