A review of the reports at the section “New Technologies and Countries of Asia and Africa” at the conference “Economic, Socio-Political, Ethno-Confessional Problems of Asian and African Countries”, March 15–17, 2021, organized by the Center for Study of Common Problems of the Modern East (CSICCE) of the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences is presented.

Presentations on the problems of new technologies were made by researchers of the Institute of Oriental Studies, Institute of Africa of the Russian Academy of Sciences; professors, graduate and undergraduate students of Institute of African and Asian Studies of M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Institute of Oriental Countries. The reports addressed such issues as the development of vertical farms in the context of urban agriculture in Eastern countries, the energy transition and the role of foreign economic relations in this process. It was shown how digital technology entered the life of an African village, in Mali. Particular attention was paid to such problems as the role of ICT in the fight against COVID-19, the growing importance of the digital economy in Eastern countries in the context of the pandemic, the use of digital technologies in the fight against the pandemic in Japan, China,

Reports were devoted to such problems as China’s contribution to the development of technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in Africa, the formation of Japan’s model of “circular and ecological economy” on the way to sustainable development, new trends in innovation policy in Australia, the peculiarities of ICT development in Iran.

At the section of young researchers, mostly students of the Institute of Eastern Countries, reports were made on such issues as social networks in Turkey, Japan, China, Australia, the market for online games in East and South-East Asia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Arab countries. the role of social networks during the “Arab Spring”, the development of AI and robotics in Japan, 3D-printing in South Korea.