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Expert says Russia and ASEAN should coordinate development plans

MOSCOW, May 6. /TASS/. Russia and member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) should coordinate their national priorities and plans for rapprochement, Director of Moscow-based ASEAN Center Viktor Sumsky told TASS on Friday.

The ASEAN has a master connectivity plan passed in 2010 in Hanoi, Sumsky said. "It largely focuses on tasks and projects of infrastructural development of the Southeast Asia, being viewed as an indispensable condition of ongoing modernization of the region," the expert said. "This is highly in tune with our goal of an upswing in Siberia and the Far East through similar measures," he added.

"It will be good to more frequently compare our national priorities and development plans with those in ASEAN member-states, thereby identifying real contact points between us and compatibility of our interests," Sumsky said.

The Russia-ASEAN summit will be held in Sochi on May 19-20 and will become the biggest international event in Russia in 2016. The summit will be held under the slogan "Towards Strategic Partnership for the Sake of the Common Good."

The summit is expected to adopt a declaration that will lay the basis for an action plan of Russia-ASEAN cooperation in the political, economic and cultural spheres, as well as in the sphere of security.

Russia has been a dialog partner of ASEAN since July 1996. Similar partnership summits are normally held on the territory of member-states and the choice of Sochi as venue for the Russia-ASEAN summit on the partnership’s 20th anniversary is symbolic.