The 2nd ASEAN Digital Ministers meeting discussed various issues including how to further deepen cooperation with Dialogue and Development Partners in enhancing digital cooperation, developing human resources, exploring emerging technologies for adoption, and improving the capacity to address cybersecurity risks in the implementation of the ADM2025.
Since the pandemic, members have been discussing the adoption of a holistic technology for commerce, trade and even immigration between nations. ASEAN want to see itself as one and wants to use technology to bowtie this together. But to have a universal system from such culturally diverse nations will be quite a mammoth task, all parties will have to adopt this and at the same feel secure that information is protected.
During the meet, members were appreciative of China which has joined in on activities relating to digital economy development, digital technology innovation, and 5G infrastructure offering security technical training which was conducted last year. With China firmly in the driving seat helping ASEAN to meet its goals, the 2025 targets will not be too far fetched. In fact, members are already looking forward to furthering collaboration under the Action Plan on Implementing the ASEAN-China Partnership on Digital Economy Cooperation (2021-2025), which was adopted by the Meeting. This will enable in exchanging information and cooperating in digital economy development and regulatory policies, emerging technologies, digital technology innovation, digital security, and capacity building, as well as cooperating at multilateral platforms in 2022.
Not to be entirely dependent on China, ASEAN members included their other big trade partner India which was acknowledged for the progress made in the commissioning of Centres of Excellence in Software Development and Training (CESDT) in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and similar ongoing activities in Viet Nam in addition to its assistance to the ICT human resource development through various knowledge sharing and capacity building programmes at reputable training centres in India.
The members collectively approved the 2022 ASEAN-India Digital Work Plan which supports the ADM2025 initiatives including a System for combating the use of stolen and counterfeit mobile handsets, WiFi Access network interface for nationwide public internet capacity building and knowledge sharing in the areas of Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G, ICT in Disaster Management, Future Trends in Mobile Communication, Advanced Satellite Communication, Telecom Security Management, Role of ICT in implementation of Digital Health, Security protection and assessment for future network, Cyber Forensics, fostering Broadband access and connectivity and Regulatory and Policy issues.
ASEAN is approaching the digital transformation agenda remarkably in a professional manner somewhat like a private entity, but the dialogue will need larger collaboration partners which is why members have called for greater participation from the private sector in order to jointly develop quality digital infrastructure and services to support the growth of digitally-enabled ASEAN Community.
