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COVID-19 remains biggest challenge for Southeast Asia in 2021: survey

The COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts remain the largest challenges for the Southeast Asian region in 2021, according to the State of Southeast Asia 2021 survey report announced by the ASEAN Studies Centre at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute on February 10.
COVID-19 remains biggest challenge for Southeast Asia in 2021: survey ảnh 1Vietnamese people wear face mask to prevent COVID-19. (Photo: VNA)

Singapore (VNA) - The COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts remain thelargest challenges for the Southeast Asian region in 2021, according to theState of Southeast Asia 2021 survey report announced by the ASEAN StudiesCentre at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute on February 10.

A total 1,032 respondents from tenASEAN member states participated in the online survey which drew from fivecategories of affiliation: academia/research, business/finance, government,civil-society/non-governmental/media and regional/international organisations.
         
The SoutheastAsia is preoccupied with the COVID-19 and recovery process. Seventy-six percentof the respondents believed that the threat to health from COVID-19 iscurrently the region’s most pressing concern. Meanwhile, unemployment and economicrecession came second (63 percent), followed by the socio-economic gaps andincome disparity (40.7 percent).
The majorityof Southeast Asians (60.7 percent) approve of their governments’ response tothe pandemic.

In terms of COVID-19 fight leadership, respondents vote almostequally for Singapore (32.7 percent) and Vietnam (31.1 percent) for providingbest leadership to ASEAN.

ASEAN continues to express concernsover the East Sea issue, and regional people said the issue should be settlebased on respect of international law./.
VNA
#COVID-19 #largest challenges #Southeast Asian region #ASEAN Studies Centre #ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute #recovery process #Vietnam News Agency #Vietnamplus ASEAN
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