Military medicine center in Bangkok is major result of Russia-Thailand cooperation - Russian defense minister

MOSCOW, April 26. /TASS/. The opening of an ASEAN military medicine center in Bangkok is a major result of cooperation between Russia and Thailand; this center will make it possible to offer swift reaction to any infection outbreaks, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday. "A vivid example of Russian-Thai mutually cooperation is co-chair in the expert group of the ADMM-Plus. One of the major results of this cooperation is the establishment of the ASEAN military medicine center which was inaugurated on April 7, 2016 in Bagkok. Thanks to this our medics will be able to coordinate their actions, to offer swift reaction to infection outbreaks, to conduct joint research," Shoigu said at a meeting with Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Prawit Wongsuwan. The Russian minister noted that it is his second meeting with the Thai counterparts over the past two months. "It is a good sign indicating strengthening trust and friendly relations between the Russian and Thai armed forces," he said. "Today, I suggest we continue dialogue on the development of our bilateral military and military technical cooperation," Shoigu said. The Thai defense minister also noted that his today’s meeting with Shoigu "is a sign of closer relations between the two countries." Meetings of defense ministers of Russia and member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are held ahead of a Russian-ASEAN summit due to take place in Russia’s Black Sea resort city of Sochi on May 19-20, which will be the biggest international forum in Russia in 2016. Russia has been ASEAN’s full-fledged dialogue partners since 1996. The ASEAN countries measuring 4.5 million square kilometers in area are home for 600,000 million people. Their overall gross domestic product is about 3.5 trillion U.S. dollars, and it is expected to reach 4 trillion U.S. dollars by 2020. ASEAN is getting ever more attractive to foreign capital. In 2014, foreign investment into ASEAN went up by 16 percent to above 136 billion U.S. dollars. Read more