Kanaev Evgeniy

Healthtech in ASEAN Integration Agenda

ЮГО-ВОСТОЧНАЯ АЗИЯ: АКТУАЛЬНЫЕ ПРОБЛЕМЫ РАЗВИТИЯ, 2024, №1(62), 47-62

 
Annotation: The article aims to reveal ASEAN’s (Association of Southeast Asian Nations’) possibilities to stimulate HealthTech-related developments in its member states. The influence of global digital transformation on ASEAN countries is systemized, ASEAN-led digitalization-focused economic projects are assessed, prospects for extending these projects to the HealthTech sector, both along the bilateral and the multilateral track, are specified. The author argues that from a competitiveness perspective, instruments of digital transformation are increasing in significance in driving ASEAN-led multilateral economic projects, but simultaneously, they remain critically dependent on the non-digital assets. ASEAN’s digital initiatives are stumbling for exactly the same reason that is behind a low effectiveness of ASEAN-led multilateral non-digital projects. As a consequence, while at the intra-country level the Healthtech-related developments has bright prospects, this is unlikely to happen at the ASEAN level due to underdeveloped instruments of ASEAN integration. The academic significance and novelty of the research stem from an increasing role of digital instruments in stimulating sector-specific regional integration, which is exemplified by Healthtech-related developments in Southeast Asia in the context of ASEAN multilateral initiatives. To date, this topic and its more analytically narrow directions are not sufficiently covered by scholars in Russia and in other countries.

Keywords: ASEAN, multilateral cooperation, digital transformation, ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement, HealthTech instruments