State Duma speaker urges Eurasian counterparts to establish permanent ties in digital economy

SEOUL, June 27. /TASS/. Speaker of Russia’s State Duma (lower house of parliament) Vyacheslav Volodin has invited Eurasian lawmakeres to establish permanent interaction in the field of digital economy at both the legislative and expert levels. He put forward the initiative at the second meeting of parliament speakers of Eurasian countries underway in Seoul. "It would be appropriate to establish permanent working contacts between the relevant committees that would involve not only lawmakers but also representatives of the expert community, scientific, academic and business circles," Volodin said. "Our time is a time of development of the digital economy and technologies. As you understand, they are already becoming an integral part of people’s lives," the speaker went on to say calling for appropriate legislative decisions. Volodin noted that the meeting is being held in South Korea, a country that is one of the leaders in the development of the digital economy. He noted, however, that practically all countries have their own experience of developing legislation in that area. "Our country, just like many others, pays attention to this," the State Duma speaker said. He recalled that Russian President Vladimir Putin singled out the digital economy issue as a development priority. "For us, legislators, a new area emerges for regulating human-robot relations, developing artificial intelligence, using cryptocurrencies, ensuring digital security, and that’s not a complete list of the issues that require our solutions," he added. According to Volodin, these mechanisms could be used to maintain multilateral contacts between the meetings and form packages of specific proposals for subsequent discussion at the annual meetings of Eurasian parliaments' speakers. In light of that, he supported the cyber secretariat mechanism proposed by Speaker of the Republic of Korea’s National Assembly, Chung Sye-kyun, that could play a coordinating role in that work. Read more