Seoul (VNA) – ASEAN and the Republic of Korea (RoK) need to forgecloser ties and cooperation in e-commerce as Chinese e-commerce giants such asAlibaba and Tencent are expanding their business in ASEAN through hugeinvestments in companies like Lazada, a leading e-commerce platform in theregion, said Lee Hyuk, Secretary General of the ASEAN-Korea Centre, at the 2018ASEAN Digital Commerce Forum held in Seoul on 4 July.

To this end, the Secretary General added that the forum has been designed toserve as a venue to share experiences, knowledge, and vision of e-commerce toachieve mutually beneficial economic cooperation between ASEAN and the RoK.

According to him, the size of the e-commerce market in ASEAN is expected toincrease by 16 times and reach 90 billion USD by 2025, with 160 millionmiddle-class consumers and rapid improvement in internet penetration.

The event, co-organised by the ASEAN-Korea Centre and the Korea InternationalTrade Association, was attended by around 170 commercial officials and privatesector representatives in the e-commerce sector from ASEAN member states and theRoK.

The opening session was followed by general lectures on e-commerce in Asia andthe Pacific, status and trend of e-commerce market in the RoK and e-commerce ofASEAN.

Besides, government officials and company representatives from ASEAN memberstates introduced the current status of their respective national e-commercemarket. And one-on-one business meetings between ASEAN and RoK companies werealso held to discuss cooperative measures and build business networks.-VNA