Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Phạm Bình Minh attends the ASEAN Business and Investment Summit 2021, held via videoconference on Monday. — VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Phạm Bình Minh told an ASEAN business summit that companies must be both proactive and creative to adapt to the ‘new normal’.

He said member states should not rely on their own governments, but instead bloc-wide joint efforts are needed to ensure economic recovery.

The Deputy PM was speaking at the virtual ASEAN Business and Investment Summit 2021 (ASEAN BIS) held on Monday.

He reaffirmed the importance of the Consolidated Strategy on the Fourth Industrial Revolution for ASEAN and the acceleration of the Strategic and Holistic Initiative to Link ASEAN Responses to Emergencies and Disasters (ASEAN SHIELD), proposed by Brunei, this year’s Chair of the bloc.

Minh said Việt Nam would be ready to cooperate in enhancing the digital infrastructure connectivity, ensuring a digital ecosystem for all parties towards uniform and sustainable digital development in the region, and accompanying enterprises of ASEAN and partner countries to create the best possible conditions in terms of policies and the business environment so that they can optimise and maximise business and investment chances in Việt Nam and regional countries.

The Vietnamese Government would strive to help enterprises conduct digital transformation, boost digital universalisation, and create conditions for promoting investment in high technology towards green growth, he added.

The Deputy PM expressed his hope that the business community would continue to work together with ASEAN governments to defeat the pandemic and support economic recovery.

He stressed the need for ASEAN to show dynamism, proactiveness, and creativity to adapt to the new normal, create jobs, ensure a stable life for people, and produce new values for society.

The ASEAN BIS is held annually by the ASEAN Business Advisory Council in conjunction with the bloc’s summits. It provides an occasion for the public and private sectors, and representatives of governments and industries in and outside ASEAN to meet one another. It is also a platform for connecting and promoting initiatives on ASEAN economic cooperation and integration. — VNS