South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT will attend the fifth Korea-ASEAN Digital Ministers' Meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam, from Jan. 15 to 16, with Lee Do-gyu, head of the Information and Communication Policy Office, as chief representative. It will seek to strengthen Korea-ASEAN cooperation in AI and digital areas.

The Korea-ASEAN Digital Ministers' Meeting is a bilateral multilateral meeting linked to the ASEAN Digital Ministers' Meeting. It is a ministerial consultative body that reviews outcomes of cooperation in the digital sector and discusses future directions for cooperation.

This year's meeting will review implementation of the Korea-ASEAN Digital Innovation Flagship, an ASEAN AI and digital capacity-building initiative that has been pushed in earnest since last year. The ministry plans to request active cooperation so that projects to build a common data ecosystem and to promote AI convergence and dissemination, for which approval procedures are under way, can get fully on track this year.

The ministry will also work closely to speed up the second Korea-ASEAN Cyber Shield project, a cybersecurity talent-development programme, and the ASEAN AI Safety Network partnership programme, which the Korea AI Safety Institute is set to implement under a proposal from Malaysia's Ministry of Digital.

During the ministerial meeting, Lee will visit FPT, one of Vietnam's largest IT companies, and discuss with Vice Chairman The Phuong ways to expand cooperation and support Korean ICT companies' entry into Vietnam. The ministry expects this to strengthen overseas expansion by domestic small and startup companies and boost Korea-Vietnam digital cooperation.

Lee said the ministry would push ahead without disruption with cooperation in AI and digital areas so that Korea-ASEAN cooperation can move beyond declarations and deliver results that can be felt on the ground.