Philippine president invites Putin to ASEAN Summit in November

KAZAN. June 17 (Interfax) - Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos has invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to the 25th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit to take place in Manila in November.

This year is a special time for this meeting, because it marks 35 years since the establishment of relations between ASEAN and Russia, Marcos said at a meeting with Putin on the sidelines of the Russia-ASEAN Summit in Kazan.

Marcos said that, as the ASEAN chair, he would like to invite Putin to participate in the 25th ASEAN summit taking place in Manila this November.

The Philippines are chairing in ASEAN in 2026.

Speaking about Russia's cooperation with the ASEAN member states, Marcos emphasized that the interaction is on a good level and recalled the meeting of the Russian-Philippine intergovernmental commission which had taken place in Moscow in last September.

The Philippines are grateful for the strategic exchange of views on various structural issues concerning trade between the two countries, and there are plenty of potential cooperation tracks yet to be explored, Marcos said.

The level of trade between Russia and the Philippines is stable, but its potential has not been fully revealed, he said.

Security and energy issues became the priority tracks during the intergovernmental commission's meeting in Moscow, this is why interaction between the business communities as part of this meeting enabled Russia and the Philippines to consider possible joint projects, he said.