By Selangor Journal Team
SHAH ALAM, Oct 14 — Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) need to invest heavily in digitalising their services, people and economy to ensure its future growth.
It is important that various government of the intergovernmental organisation aimed primarily at promoting economic growth and regional stability continue to share knowledge, expertise and technology among themselves.
Speakers at the Virtual Selangor Asean Business Conference 2020’s session titled “Sustaining Asean’s Bright Future” agreed that governments and private sectors need to work together to achieve their goals.
The online session held today was moderated by AmBank Group chief economist and Economic Action Council Secretariat member, Dr Anthony Dass, joined by speakers from Thailand Ministry of Commerce’s Trade Policy and Strategy Office director-general Pimchanok Vonkorpon, Bain & Company partner Praneeth Yendamuri and Institute of Southeast Asean Studies (ISEAS — Yusof Ishak Institute) visiting senior fellow Dr Jayant Menon.
Pimchanok said Asean government must help each other in digitalisation, innovation training, human development, green and environmentally friendly products as well as in developing a common platform for various collaboration.
“Some countries have more expertise, more knowledge and more technology… we must explore ways how to help others in building innovation and digitisation.
“Human resource will be challenging in the future, maybe some Asean countries that do not have access to knowledge can be helped, such as experts from Malaysia can help Thailand in training,” she said.
Meanwhile, Dr Jayant said the organisation’s economic outlook depends on the governments’ responses during Covid-19 pandemic.
“The prospect for Asean is relatively positive as long as it (its government) does not retreat behind borders and remains open and outward-looking, things would probably a lot better relatively soon,” he said.
Yendamuri, on the other hand, added that as a “market bloc”, Asean has become significantly important by 2030.
He said four macro forces will determine the pace and magnitude of growth in Asean region, which is favourable demographics, rising income levels, geopolitical and regulatory puzzle and digital tailwinds.
“Asean population is growing younger, also one in six of the new consumer class of the world will come from Asean. Regulatory challenges hampering the growth are being addressed
“We also believe due to pandemic, five years of digital adoption has happened in one. With a lot of government policies initiating digital adoption programmes being enforced we believe this will be a force of reckoning in years to come,” he said.
Concluding the session, Anthony said even though the role of the Asean governments in driving the region’s economy is crucial, the private sector also has an essential role, and cooperation from both will create the right mix in sustaining Asean’s bright future.
The Virtual Selangor International Business Hub 2020 was launched today and will run from October 14 to 17. The online event offers three main components — Selangor International Expo, Selangor Asean Business Conference and Selangor Smart City and Digital Economy Convention.
